A review of the military and historical studies of World War I in Bulgaria

Abstract

The paper reviews the development of the Bulgarian historiography of the First World War, which can be divided into three totally different periods. The publications from the 1920s and 1930s can be viewed as a product of a national school that is strongly marked with the trauma from the political catastrophes and unrealised national projects. The second period covers the Communist era or the totalitarian government of Bulgaria (September 9, 1944 - November 10, 1989) and includes an evolution from a total denial of the past historiographic schools, i.e. a complete ignoring of the topic of the ideological and political motives, to its gradual rehabilitation. In the last three decades, since there have been many jubilee celebrations of the World War I end and Bulgaria's participation in it, the interest of historians towards this topic has risen as well as acquirement of new research areas.