Maya Gorcheva

Todor Peev’s drama draws attention to the status of women in the revival family and unfolds the various patterns of acceptance, rejection or accommodation to its norms. Social changes in the transition from traditional to pseudo-modern social roles are articulated as a moral and ethical problem. The female protagonist is a young girl set out on the path of “becoming civilized,” she is the agent of social dynamics. Becoming an adult, she attempts to ground her understanding of a woman’s place in the world on the category of free will, but finds out that “the new theories” are a subject of irony. The violation of established relationships and the pursuit of fashionable bookish models turn her life into tragedy. With the proposed theme, I aim to examine the personal story of this character and that of the other female figures in the play. I relate their behavior and mentality to Fudulescu’s “new doctrine of limitless personal freedom.” Are women free in their choices, or they are the helpless prey of false ideas and remain dependent on the manipulator’s persuasions? What are their tactics for coping with the imposed authority and male dominance and what are their existentially important goals?

The “postmodern conceptual project” in contemporary Bulgarian literature chalked up an undisputed paragon of the genre with the publication of Iana Boukova’s novel Traveling in the Direction of the Shadow in 2009. But it was in 2014 with its reception and readerly success following the second edition of the novel that its literary critical value became apparent. The fiction dismantles ideological constructs of the historical metanarrative and rebuilds the authenticity of the pre-Revival by restoring its micro-narratives. By making use of postmodern compositional techniques and intertextuality, it offers a reinterpretation of the historical realia and the figure of the narrator.