Socialist Bulgarian state-sanctioned cultural production about the barbaric, primitive, Oriental Turks abounded until 1989, to reaffirm Bulgaria’s national identity as a European country with modern European potential that was crippled by the Ottomans. These media texts constructed the predominating images of Turks and Turkey until 2008, when the importation of Turkish television series for Bulgarian consumption began, met with an unprecedented popularity that carried them to prime time. Turkish television series continue to dominate ratings in Bulgaria (24 Chasa, 2020) and their unprecedented popularity showcases multiple Bulgarian anxieties. YouTube and Google.bg searches abound with results for the most popular, most romantic, must-watch Turkish series, however, hidden among the wild popularity of Turkish series are YouTube video parodies of Turkish series and zealous articles against them. Twitter houses the most anti-Turkish series commentary castigating the government and broadcasters for distributing the series, while bemoaning the deterioration of Bulgarian intellect, culture, and productivity ostensibly caused by the series. What does the Bulgarian experience of deriding Turkish series look like? More generally, what is the relationship of banal nationalism (Billig, 1995) to transnational popular culture? Through a phenomenological thematic analysis (Van Manen, 1990), I analyze op-eds, video parodies and tweets that castigate the series. According to preliminary findings, I argue that deriding the Turkish series is a performance of Bulgarian nationalism. Clenching narratives of Bulgaria’s Turkish “other” constructed during socialist nation-building shelters a primordial Bulgarian national identity while Bulgarian social, political, and economic hurdles are imputed to the Turkish series.
24 Chasa. Nikolaos Tzitiridis, news and Turkish series--most watched in January (2020, February
6). Www.24chasa.Bg. Retrieved from https://www.24chasa.bg/novini/article/8156387
Billig, M. (1995). Banal nationalism. Sage.
Van Manen, M.(1990). Researching Lived Experience: Human Science for an Action Sensitive Pedagogy. Albany: SUNY Press.