Maria Todorova (NHC Fellow, 2000–01)

Fellowship Work Summary, 2000–01

Maria Todorova worked on her book, entitled Bones of Contention, on the creation of a national hero in the Bulgarian context in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As editor and co-author of a volume entitled National Identities and National Memories in the Balkans (accepted for publication by Hurst, London, together with New York University Press), she wrote the introductory essay, "Learning Memory, Remembering Identity," and a chapter on "Conversions to Islam As a Trope in Bulgarian Historiography, Fiction, and Film." She wrote several articles that have already been published, including "Za klishetata, za elitite i za krizata v mezhdunarodniya pravov red," for Otvîd utopiite, edited by Emmy Barouh (Sofia, Bulgaria: Deutsche Welle, 2000); the introduction to the Greek edition of Imagining the Balkans: Valkania. I ditiki fantasiosi (Athens, Thessaloniki: Paratiritis, 2000); and "Does Russian Orientalism Have a Russian Soul?" for the journal Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 1, no. 4 (fall 2000). She did final editing for "The Balkans As a Category of Analysis: Borders, Space, Time," which will appear in the fall 2001 issue of Geschichte und Gesellschaft (in German); a slightly abbreviated English version will appear in Annäherungen an eine europäische Geschichtsschreibung, edited by G. Stourzh (Vienna, forthcoming). She wrote four reviews for The American Historical Review.