The End of the Century. Political Memories of one Non-Politician

Abstract

Evgenia Ivanova's book „The End of the Century. Political Memories of a Non-Politician“ is an autobiographical story. It not only covers the political events in Bulgaria from the 1990s, but the narrative also goes back to fundamental personae from the 19th century onwards. The book combines various genres: from classical autobiography and journalism, characterised by different nuances of historical and fictional narrative, to memoir. This is a freer view, not succumbing to the otherwise difficult-to-discern framework of the genre, which may also show the features of the romanticised autobiography. Simultaneously, the seasoned ethnological view may distinguish the peculiarities of the autobiographical tale as a methodological apparatus, as well as the realised autoreflexiveness and the growing reverse reflexiveness of the ethnologist Evgenia Ivanova towards a vast period of processes and the events it holds. Not least, the book poses the question: „Why does the author decide to tell her story up until the year 2000?“. The answer is in the book.