State and Nation in Eastern Europe: A Conversation with Zlatko Enev
Monday, November 23, 2026 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm CET/GMT+1Julie Johnson Kidd Hall
Hosted by the “History of Modernities in Eastern Europe” seminar, this event will introduce Zlatko Enev’s new book Philosophy of Modern Bulgarian History: An Attempt at a Logical-Historical Analysis. An unconventional approach to history-writing, Enev's book asks how the Bulgarian national project came to understand the state created in 1878 as an incomplete realization of the nation. Using Bulgaria as a case study, the conversation will explore the relationship between nationhood and state-building, the politics of national “completion,” and the ways in which historical failure, victimhood and collective memory can become enduring elements of national self-understanding.
Zlatko Enev is a Berlin-based Bulgarian writer, translator, and editor of the online journal Liberal Review. He is the author of Requiem for Nobody, a novel dealing with the forced assimilation campaign against Bulgaria’s Turkish minority in the 1980s, the so-called “Revival Process”, and The Children of Hans Asperger, a literary memoir about autism, family life, and the experience of raising an autistic child.
Email: [email protected]