Stephanov | 269spatial) metaphors. The new spin on the blood connection (“brothers”) and the
centrality of Bulgar children (“little Bulgars”) signals a new level of group solidar-
ity at the popular level, which immediately translates into a new level of group
mobilization (“in one voice”). The scale of change is accentuated by the specific
territorial macro mapping and personification of Bulgaria (“May the Black Sea,
the Danube, the Sava / jump to the skies”), accompanied by a parallel personifi-
cation of the rest of the world (“May all countries listen”). This unusual juxtapo-
sition draws for the first time attention to the nascent competitiveness of the us
group (“May it be heard across the world”) and the corresponding assertion of
its own exceptionalism.
The sultan’s part also undergoes substantial alterations. The old role of the
antagonistic “other,” the sultan’s enemies (see the last four poetic lines of the ear-
lier “Love for the Sultan by His Subjects”), is still present, but it no longer takes
center stage despite the inclusion of images of defensive (“invisible shield”) or
aggressive (“under his feet / All his enemies defeat” and “May he overwhelm his
enemies”) militarism. If anything, this motif of belligerence acts as yet another
subtle agent for group mobilization. Not surprisingly, the sultan’s aura is further
diminished by the introduction of the radical notion of sultanic sacrifice for his
subjects (“May he... not spare himself in giving”). Finally, all these develop-
ments culminate in the majestic image of a grand-spatial order (“sun, moon and
stars”) etched into eternity (“for as long as there are in the world”). Clearly, the
purpose of this cosmic-scale depiction is carving out a niche for the Bulgars “un-
der the sun.”
In 1870, the sultan granted the Bulgars the right to their separate ecclesiasti-
cal institution and hierarchy. This political event signaled the rise to prominence
of the national idea among the members of this non-Muslim imperial commu-
nity. Within the next few years, a series of escalating revolutionary activities took
place, leading directly to the 1877–1878 Russo-Ottoman War and the establish-
ment of the modern nation-state of Bulgaria.
***The close relationship of the Bulgars to the monarch, forged by the 1846 tour,
the cultural production and celebratory practices it inspired, and the abstract
communal public space these spawned, remained strong in the following two de-
cades. This relationship gradually became the central legitimating component in
the increasingly politicized process of voicing communal concerns, in the crys-
tallization and manifestation of communal agendas, and the clash of communal
rivalries. In this way, under the guise of sultanic commemoration, the conceptual
coordinates of a new, ethnonational mental universe were slowly and subtly laid
out. By the mid-1860s, the centrality of the heroic figure of the sultan was already