Power, Press, and Resistance: The Role of the Periodical Press for Revolutionary Movements in Europe and the Balkans

The theme of the upcoming annual conference of the Bulgarian Society for the Study of the 18th Century is in line with two anniversaries that fall in 2026, that is, 150 years since the Bulgarian April Uprising of 1876 and 180 years since the publication of the first issue of the periodical Balgarsji orel (Bulgarian Eagle) by Ivan Bogorov, which marked the beginning of the history of the Bulgarian press. In line with these important jubilees that inspired our annual forum, we will welcome papers that deal more generally with the way rulers in Europe, the Ottoman Empire, and Russia exercised their power. Moreover, another thematic thread of the conference will be the attempts in the 18th and 19th centuries to undermine the established political regime with the creation of resistance movements, which often were ideologically inspired by the ideas of Enlightenment.
The context in which modern ideas about governance and its rethinking circulated in connection with the birth of the concept of “nation” was strongly influenced by the means of information, such as newspapers, magazines, brochures, and books. Their pages were an arena for constructing, comparing, and putting under question political and power narratives used by the authorities. Both the ideological and economic prerequisites for starting and stopping various periodicals, their distribution, financing, and provision will be objects of interest as well. In fact, after centuries of superiority of the manuscript tradition, through printed publications, the modern conception of the “public” gradually emerged.
The conference will take place on March 24–25, 2026, in the New Conference Hall of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski.”
We suggest the following thematic lines:

• Theoretical approaches to the problem of power
• Enlightened rulers – power policies and practices
• Colonial policies and anti-colonial movements
• Nation projects – their realizations and failures
• Revolutionary movements in Europe, the Balkans, and Russia
• Places of resistance – the mountain, the sea, the city
• Editorial policy and press – advertising strategies, financing, distribution of periodicals
• Manuscripts and printed books – modes of coexistence
• The press as a place for debate and a means of constructing ideologies

The deadline for submission of applications (topic and abstract) is March 15, 2026 to: bulgc18@gmail.com