In general, Bulgaria is getting richer, and the international successes of Bulgarians are multiplying. So national self-esteem is justified. Unfortunately, however, it can be dangerously abused. Daniel Smilov explains:
September 6th is gradually becoming a holiday of Bulgarian national self-esteem, a holiday of what we have achieved on our own and almost in defiance of the "Great Powers". Bulgaria has undoubtedly had much to be proud of in recent decades - it is indeed a lot, although it is difficult to notice because of the relatively smooth and gradual positive changes after major collapses such as the one in 1996-1997.
To begin with: the country has been developing peacefully, freely and democratically for 36 years, which has never happened in its history. The economic standard of Bulgarians is at unprecedentedly high levels. Much can still be desired in this regard, but a look at our direct neighbors, as well as at the countries of Central and Southern Europe, would show that we have never been in a better position than them. With the entry into the eurozone, catching up with more developed countries in economic terms will continue at an accelerated pace.
The economic boom also affects culture: Bulgarian literature, for example, is experiencing an unprecedented flourishing, which is also receiving well-deserved international recognition. Although the authors of the last three decades have a hard time finding their way into school textbooks, their comparison with the Bulgarian classics will in time be in their favor.
Football, it is true, is Western, but what a pity, as the donkey said about its long ears. On the other hand, we get a lot of joy from tennis, for example, and the future looks extremely promising against the backdrop of the Bulgarian final of the US Open among juniors. Overall, Bulgaria is getting richer and the international successes of Bulgarians are multiplying, although the world around us is becoming increasingly uncertain and changeable.
On national self-esteem and its abuses
National self-esteem in this sense is justified. It is a good thing, but unfortunately it can be abused in a populist direction. The rise of populism in Eastern Europe began when countries like Hungary, Poland and Slovakia gained self-confidence and emerged from the most difficult years of their post-Soviet transition. When they got back on their feet and even became members of NATO and the EU. That's when politicians like Orban, Fico, Kaczynski, etc. began to come forward. Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes explain this paradox with the fatigue of "imitation" of the West and the desire to shine as an authentic, autochthonous original. There is something very true in this psychological explanation, and it is the emergence and development of compensatory self-confidence that societies develop after going through a severe and traumatic crisis. And the Bulgarian transition was both difficult and traumatic.
President Radev, who works for his party project at least verbally and rhetorically, is undoubtedly trying to harness the compensatory and non-compensatory national self-esteem of the Bulgarian for his own political goals. In his speech on the holiday of Unification, Rumen Radev blasted the "Great Powers" and glorified the independent efforts of the people:
"Unification is a triumph of the people's will over the cynicism of the Great Powers. A victory of the bold over the conformists, because even then there were quite a few xenophobes, gossips and seirdjies, resigned to the Berlin dictate, but the train of history passed them by. Today, this same train is accelerating its course (…) Times are critical and we must admit that there are political brokers ready to spend our future to buy someone else's blessing. To sacrifice sovereignty, the treasury and our identity. Everything that Levski, Benkovski, Botev and Zahari Stoyanov fought for.
In this fiery speech, Radev (unexpectedly and strangely) adopted Delyan Peevski's rhetoric about the "scoundrels" - perhaps to enhance the contrast between the good, patriotic people and the venal, xenophobic elite. There would be nothing wrong with rhetorical patriotism if it did not lead to two problems. The first is less important and consists in abandoning the truth in favor of a "more advantageous" historical reading for the nation. Many countries suffer from patriotic historicism and Bulgaria is one of the most affected in this regard. Unification, for example, is indeed a heroic Bulgarian political act, but it is successful because it also takes place in the appropriate and favorable international environment.
It is true that Russia is against the Unification and works for its failure, but Great Britain supports it and helps to prevent its traditional ally Turkey from intervening militarily in Rumelia in the fateful year of 1885. And this is ultimately the key factor: the Bulgarian state would have difficulty coping with a war on two fronts despite the miracles performed by our troops. The very fact that the "Great Powers" accept the Unification and the revision of the Berlin Congress after the Bulgarian victory against Serbia indicates that our politicians have played their cards well and have found sufficient international support for their actions. Prince Battenberg, who had his hesitations in the initial stages of the Unification, actually has the special merit of convincing the English government to support him. The British Prime Minister, the Conservative Lord Salisbury, was a staunch supporter of the Berlin Treaty before his meeting with our prince.
All this does not mean that someone else dictates our fate and our choices do not matter. On the contrary, without internal determination and mobilization, nothing happens. But without international allies and support, things will not work out either, as the bitter experience of the Balkan Wars shows: despite heroism and national determination, the lack of allies on whom we can rely leads to disaster.
Foreign policy opportunism is the second and more serious problem that the patriotic use of compensatory national self-esteem leads to. This opportunism assumes that the country itself will outsmart everyone else, will take advantage of everyone, and its interests will always be "first" at the expense of others. If we were the USA or China, such a policy might make sense (although this is very debatable). But we simply are not.
From this perspective, Bulgaria's future depends on lasting and principled alliances with partners with whom we share the values of freedom and democracy. The EU is the best in this regard, and our national interest is for this alliance to be preserved and prospered. And it is good for officials to mention this fact on national holidays, and not to create the impression that Bulgaria will develop in "splendid isolation" or in an interplanetary vacuum. Incidentally, the aforementioned Lord Salisbury is the author of Britain's policy of "splendid isolation", which turns out to be neither splendid nor isolation.
National self-esteem must be protected and respected
Finally: national self-esteem - compensatory or not - is a good thing that must be protected and respected. Preservation and respect also include refraining from abusing self-esteem in the direction of distorting the truth and foreign policy opportunism. And there is something else. Lasting positive self-esteem is not built on the fact that you momentarily outsmarted your neighbors and managed to take more from them. In the Balkans, for example, in addition to fighting among ourselves for centuries with varying success for each of the current nations, we have also managed to perform miracles together. Byzantine culture and Orthodoxy, the Cyrillic alphabet and literature in Bulgarian and other Slavic languages, the wonderful cities with a colorful, different, multicultural character in the deepest sense, the cuisine and the way of life in general are all things that everyone can be proud of.
For all this, we have something to thank our neighbors for and to congratulate each other. Which does not exclude competition between us, but it certainly excludes blind patriotism and chauvinism. And they, alas, go hand in hand with the rise of populism.
This comment expresses the personal opinion of the author and may not coincide with the positions of the Bulgarian editorial office and the State Gazette as a whole.