Obraz Komi v vospominaniâh bolgarskih stroitelej i lesorubov

Abstract

Investigating the image of Komi in the memoirs of the Bulgarians who worked in Komi ASSR from 1968 to 1994 fits into the actual interests of humanitarian study on geopoetics. Thereby, the tales of people residing in Komi, published on the Internet, are being considered not just as a document, but as a mythologising/demythologising discourse with specific rhetorical means. These tales are testimonies of the selectiveness of memory (accentuating the pleasant, the positive, or vice versa – the bad and the negative). Another tendency is also noticeable: despite the official ideological discourse, which encompasses the work of the Bulgarians in Komi – the ideologeme of SIV (COMECON) as an embodiment of “comradery” – the authors of these memoirs are facing the “structures of everyday life” and their roles as pioneers developing a new land. Today presence of the Bulgarians in Komi is iterated through their participation in the society of “Russophiles” and political disputes of these days.