1 Denton Snider, a well-known American literary critic at the time of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, dubbed the seemingly hierarchical arrangement of “ethnic villages” at the fair a “sliding scale of humanity.” Rydell, Robert, All the World's a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876–1916 (Chicago, 1987), 65.Google Scholar

2 Most of the literature on worlds' fairs tends to focus on the hegemonic intent and results of display. See, for example, Rydell,All the World's a Fair; Rydell, Robert, Findling, John, and Pelle, Kimberly, eds.,Fair America: World's Fairs in the United States (Washington, D.C., 2000);Google Scholar and Rydell, Robert and Gwinn, Nancy, eds.,Fair Representations: World's Fairs and the Modern World (Amsterdam, 1994);Google Scholar Hoffenberg, Peter, An Empire on Display: English, Indian and Australian Exhibitions from the Crystal Palace to the Great War (Berkeley, 2001).Google Scholar

3 A smaller but growing body of work includes the far messier and complex realm of the participant/observer side of the fairs. See, for example, Louise Pubrick, “Introduction,” in Louise Pubrick, ed.,The Great Exhibition of 1851: New Interdisciplinary Essays (Manchester, Eng., 2001); Walden, Keith, Becoming Modern in Toronto: The Industrial Exhibition and the Shaping of a Late Victorian Culture (Toronto, 1997);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Tenorio, Mauricio, Mexico at the World's Fairs: Crafting a Modern Nation (Berkeley, 1996).Google Scholar

4 For a variety of eastern reactions to western displays, see Findley, Carter Vaughn, “An Ottoman Occidentalist in Europe: Ahmed Midhat Meets Madame Gulnar, 1889,” American Historical Review 103, no. 1 (February 1998): 15–49;Google Scholar and Mitchell, Timothy, Colonising Egypt, 2d ed. (Berkeley, 1991), 1–134.Google Scholar

5 In detailed studies of these fairs, even when “ethnicity” is highlighted, discussions of east Europeans are totally peripheral if not absent. See, for example, Parezo, Nancy and Fowler, Don, Anthropology Goes to the Fair: The 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition (Lincoln, 2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar The comparatively ample works on Austrian-Habsburg displays at world's fairs, though generally focused on architecture and design, are the exception. See, for example, Long, Christopher, “The Viennese Secession's Stil and Modern American Design”, Studies in the Decorative Arts 14, no. 2 (Spring-Summer 2007): 6–44.Google Scholar

6 A number of books have chapters or sections that deal with the range of issues surrounding east central European fairs. See, for example, Giustino, Cathleen, TearingDown Prague's Jewish Town: Ghetto Clearance and the Legacy of Middle-Class Ethnic Politics around 1900(Boulder, Colo., 2003), 65–69;Google Scholar Freifeld, Alice, Nationalism and the Crowd in Liberal Hungary, 1848–1914 (Baltimore, 2000), 230–54;Google Scholar Healy, Maureen, Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I (Cambridge, Eng., 2004), 87–122;Google Scholar Dabrowski, Patrice, Commemorations and the Shaping of Modern Poland (Bloomington, 2004), 181–26.Google Scholar

7 On the Vienna Universal Exhibition of 1873 and also the Lvov exhibition of 1894, see, for example, Unowsky, Daniel, The Pomp and Politics of Patriotism: Imperial Celebrations in Habsburg Austria, 1848–1916 (West Lafayette, 2005), 54, 72.Google Scholar

8 The very concept of “eastern Europe” is quite controversial. See my introduction to this cluster for a more detailed discussion of the literature on these issues.

9 For the best overview of Bulgarians' complex attitudes toward the west, see Roumen Daskalov, “Images of Europe: A Glance from the Periphery” (European University Institute Working Paper No. 94/8, 1994). See also his more detailed discussion in Bulgarian in Daskalov, Roumen, Mezhdu Iztok i Zapada: Biilgarski kultitrni dilemeni (Sofia, 1998).Google Scholar

10 See my detailed discussion of this phenomenon and contested process, particularly in relation to Muslim minorities, in Neuburger, Mary, The Orient Within: Muslim Minorities and the Negotiation of Nationhood in Modern Bulgaria (Ithaca, 2004).Google Scholar On the “Orientalization” of the Balkans, see also Bakic-Hayden, Milica, “Nesting Orientalisms: The Case of Former Yugoslavia,” Slavic Review 54, no. 4 (Winter 1995): 917–31.Google Scholar See also Todorova's important work on the related phenomenon of “Balkanism,” in Todorova, Maria, Imagining the Balkans (New York, 1997).Google Scholar

11 Findley describes occidentalism as a “counter-discourse” that developed in response to orientalism and “became an important component of anticolonial nationalism.” See Findley, “An Ottoman Occidentalist in Europe,” 17. For more on the concept of occidentalism, or the construction of an essentialized west, see Carrier, James, ed., Occidentalism: Images of the West (Oxford, 1995).Google Scholar For some discussion of occidentalist imagery in nineteenth-century Bulgarian literature, see Aretov, Nikolai, “Shto e Oksidentalizum i ima li toi pochva u nas?” Literaturna misul, no. 1 (2005).Google Scholar

12 A growing literature on Bulgarian national identity has explored the importance of situating Bulgarians between east and west. See, for example, Elenkov, Ivan and Daskalov, R., eds., Zashtosme takiva? VturcenenaBulgarskatakulturna identichnost (Sofia, 1995), 14 Google Scholar. See also Neuburger, The Orient Within, 1–17.

13 On the significance of eastern travelers to the west, see especially, Bracewell, Wendy and Drace-Francis, Alex, eds., Under Eastern Eyes: A Comparative Introduction to East European Travel Writing on Europe (Budapest, 2008).Google Scholar On western travelers to the Balkans, see Allcock, John and Young, Antonia, eds., Black Lambs and Grey Falcons: Women Travelers in the Balkans (Bradford, Eng., 1991), 170–91;Google Scholar Jezernik, Bozidar, Wild Europe: The Balkans in the Gaze of Western Travelers (London, 2004);Google Scholar and Todorova, Imagining the Balkans.

14 I would like to thank Gyorgy Peteri for hosting me at his institution in Trondheim, Norway, where I benefitted from the useful comments offered on this article and the many engaging discussions on the broader concept of “Imaging the West.” For some

15 For a review of the 1892 fair and future fairs held in Plovdiv in the interwar period and to a lesser extent after World War II, see Mateev, Matei, Khronika na edin panairen vek: 1892–1992 (Plovdiv, 1993).Google Scholar

16 For a broad historiographical overview and a detailed discussion of these fairs in Bulgaria, see Razhdavichka, Evelina, “Nineteenth-Century Balkan Fairs as a Social Space: Hierarchy, Marginality, Ethnicity, and Gender,” Balkan Studies/Etudes Balkaniques, no. 1 (2006): 125–48.Google Scholar

17 Stefan Stambolov had significantly more political power than the ruling Prince Ferdinand during his years as prime minister (1887–1894). For an excellent survey of the Stambolov period, see Perry, Duncan, Stefan Stambolov and the Emergence of Modern Bulgaria, 1870–1895 (Durham, 1993).Google Scholar For more on the politics of the fair, see Vasilka Tankova, “Purvoto Bulgarsko Zemedelsko-Promishleno Izlozhenie v politikata na Stamboloviia rezhim,” in Statelova, Elena, ed., 100 godini ot Purvoto Bulgarsko Zemedelsko-Promishleno Izlozhenie (Plovdiv, 1992);Google Scholar Parezo and Fowler, Anthropology Goes to the Fair, 19.

18 For a thorough discussion of Balkan and great power pretensions in the area, see Barker, Elisabeth, Macedonia: Its Place in Balkan Power Politics (London, 1950).Google Scholar I put “Bulgarian” in quotes here because of the contested nature of the identity of Slavs (as well as other populations, for example, Greeks) in the region. For a discussion of this issue, see, for example, Brown, Keith, The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation (Princeton, 2003).Google Scholar

19 See Marinov, Aleksander, Chudoto narecheno: Purvo Plovdivsko Izlozhenie (Sofia, 1992), 27–28.Google Scholar

20 These were the words of Sava Datsov, a civil servant under Nachovich who attended the exhibition under his instructions. Ibid., 27. As an aside, a train with 160 Bulgarians on board was specially commissioned for ajourney to the exhibition in Prague. Aleko Konstantinov, who was himself was on the train, later wrote a fictionalized account of this journey for a satirical feuilleton. See Aleko Konstantinov, “Bal Gano: Neveroiatni razkazi za edin sCivremenen Bulgarin,” in Aleko Konstanintov, Subrani suchineniia, ed. Tikhomir Tikhov (Sofia, 1980), 1:14.

21 See Marinov, Chudoto napecheno, 8.

22 Nasheto purvo izlozhenie, nos. 1 and 2 (December 1891): 1.

23 Ibid., 4.

24 Stefan Shivachev, “Plovdiv i Purvoto Bulgarsko Zemedelsko-Promishleno Izlozhenie,” in Statelova, ed., 100 Godini ot Purvoto Bulgarsko Zemedelsko-Promishleno Izlozhenie, 19.

25 Specifically a large number of “Ottoman baroque” houses remained (and still remain) in Plovdiv. An amalgam of Turco-Byzantine and Levantine influences, the Ottoman baroque has been appropriated as a national form from Bosnia to Syria. For a contextualization of the revival architecture of Plovdiv, see Mary Neuburger, “Dwelling in the Past: The Ottoman Imprint on Bulgarian ‘Revival Houses’ in Plovdiv and Beyond,” Centropa8, no. 2 (May 2008).

26 By the mid nineteenth century, 50 different trades were practiced in Plovdiv in some 400 workshops. The merchants of Plovdiv were engaged in trade with central and western Europe, Anatolia, Egypt, and even Calcutta, where there was an active colony of Plovdiv-based merchants. Elena Uzunska, “Plovdiv v navecheriia na osoboditelna volna,” in Undzhiev, Ivan, ed., Plovdiv, 1878–1968: 90godini ot osvobozhdenie nagrada i Plovdivskiia krai (Plovdiv, 1968), 61.Google Scholar

27 Nasheto purvo izlozhenie, no. 34 (8 August 1892): 6.

28 Nasheto purvo izlozhenie, no. 46 (24 October 1892): 7.

29 Ibid., 43.

30 For details on specific architects and their training, see Bulgariia 1900: Evropeiski vlianiia v Bulgarskoto gradoustrolstvo, arkhitektura, parkove, igradini 1878–1919 (Sofia, 2002). A Swiss architect, Jacob Heinrich Meier, designed the fairgrounds, and the landscape designer was Lucien Chevalas, ibid., 174–75, and 246–47. The Ausuo-Czech Josef Vaclav Sniter was another key architect and engineer for the project, ibid., 251–52.

31 Marinov, Chudoto napecheno, 139.

32 These dates are somewhat arbitrary but begin with the publishing of Paisii Hilendarski's Slavianobulgarska istoria. For a recent work on the national revival, see Daskalov, Ronmen, The Making of a Nation in the Balkans: Historiography of the Bulgarian Revival (Budapest, 2004).Google Scholar For a discussion of the penetration of western goods and fashions, see Gavrilova, Raina, Bulgarian Urban Culture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Cranbury.NJ., 1999), 151.Google Scholar

33 See Daskalov, Mezhdy Iztok i Zapada, 7–64.

34 Nasheto purvo izlozhenie, no. 10 (8 February 1892): 3. See also Palairet, Michael, The Balkan Economies c. 1800–1914: Evolution juithout Development (Cambridge, Eng., 2003), 186–97;Google Scholar and Daskalov, Roumen, Bulgarskoto obshtestvo: Durzhava, politika, ikonomika, 1878–1939 (Sofia, 2005), 307–11.Google Scholar

35 Nasheto purvo izlozhenie, no. 10 (8 February 1892): 6.

36 Nasheto piirvo izlozhenie, no. 12 (22 February 1892): 2. See also Marinov, Chudo narecheno, 32.

37 Nasheto purvo izlozhenie, no. 44 (13 October 1892): 7.

38 This very painting was at the center of the Batak massacre controversy of May 2007. A conference that was scheduled that spring around the theme “Images of Islam” in Bulgaria had proposed using die painting as an explicit focus for the construction of national memory of the massacre and the Ottoman past more generally. The conference was canceled after media accusations that the event and its organizers were trying to “deny” the massacre or downplay the “horrors” of the Ottoman past.

39 Vazov, Ivan, The Great Rila Wilderness (Sofia, 1969), 201.Google Scholar

40 Marinov, Chudoto napecheno, 20.

41 Ibid., 8.

42 Nasheto purvo izlozhenie, no. 10 (8 February 1892): 3.

43 Marinov, Chudoto napecheno, 69.

44 44. Ibid., 16.

45 Nasheto purvo izlozhenie, no. 7 (18January 1892): 2.

46 Nasheto purvo izlozhenie, no. 10 (8 February 1892): 6.

47 Nasheto piirvo izlozhenie, no. 50 (14 November 1892): 4–5 .

48 The Ottomans, well known for their prowess and synthesis in architectural forms, borrowed from a wide variety of design idioms. In the eighteenth century Mughal and Persian forms became popular along with European baroque. See Hamadeh, Shirine, “Ottoman Expressions of Early Modernity and the ‘Inevitable’ Question of Westernization,” Journal of the Society ofArchitectural Historians 63, no. 1 (March 2004): 32–51.Google Scholar

49 Nasheto purvo izlozhenie, no. 31 (8 July 1892): 3.

50 Nasheto purvo izlozhenie, no. 10 (8 February 1892): 2.

51 Nasheto purvo izlozhenie, no. 13 (29 February 1892): 3.

52 Nasheto purvo izlozhenie, no. 34 (8 August 1892): 3.

53 Virtually all Bulgarian studies of the fair describe it as a commendable effort and an extremely important event in Bulgarian history. For a more contemporary assessment, see a review of Sava Datsov, Nasheto izlozhenie v Plovdiv, in Periodichesko spisanie na Bidgarskoto knizhovno druzhestvo v Sredets (1893): 41–42. For the Vienna fair numbers, see John Timbs, “Miscelaneous,” in Vincent, W., ed., The Yearbook of Facts in Science and Art (London, 1873), 33.Google Scholar

54 Nasheto Purvo Izlozhenie, nos. 1 and 2 (December 1891): 4.

55 Nasheto Purvo Izlozhenie, no. 18 (11 April 1891): 7.

56 An excellent recent translation of this work into English is Aleko Konstantinov, To Chicago and Back, trans. Robert Sturm (Sofia, 2004).

57 Even western European visitors were apparently astonished by the grand scale of the Chicago fair, by far the largest of all nineteenth-century fairs with three times the floor space of the 1889 fair in Paris. For west Europeans, as for others from around the world, the Chicago fair provided what one historian called a “clarifying moment in contemporary history . . . it woke up Europeans to the power of the US.” Lewis, Arnold, An Early Encounter with Tomorrow. Europeans, Chicago's Loop, and the World's Columbian Exposition(Urbana, 1997), 17.Google Scholar

58 Konstantinov, To Chicago and Back, 24–25.

59 Ibid., 92.

60 Ibid., 55.

61 Ibid., 70.

62 Ibid., 69.

63 Ibid., 60.

64 Ibid., 72.

65 Significandy, Konstantinov seems particularly offended by the “Americans in fezzes,” who sell kebabs and dance like dervishes at the “Turkish village,” where he eats lunch on his first day at the fair. Ibid., 63.

66 Bancroft, Hubert Howe, Book of the Fair: An Historical Descriptive Presentation of the World's Science, Art, and Industry, as Viewed through the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893(Chicago, 1895), 1: 218–19.Google Scholar

67 Konstantinov, To Chicago and Back, 55–57.

68 Ibid., 72.

69 This novel, one of Bulgaria's most cherished works of literature (along with Under the Yoke), concerns the bumbling travails of a Bulgarian rose oil merchant, Gano Balkanski (the Balkan one). Bai (an archaic form of address) Gano travels around Europe embarrassing himself with his uncivilized manner and lack of “European” decorum.

70 Debates about the true meaning of BaT Gano have abounded since its publication, and there is a school of thought that suggests that Bai Gano is emblematic of a specific social class—Bulgaria's nouveau riche. Although he still provokes serious controversy, BaT Gano is generally read and understood by Bulgarians as a “national” prototype, or at least a “Homo balkanicus.” Bai Gano is by far the most debated and analyzed work of Bulgarian literature. For the best survey of historical interpretations of the work, see Daskalov, Mezhdy Iztok i Zapada, 116 – 83. See also Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, 37–42.

71 Konstantinov, To Chicago and Back, 58.

72 Ibid., 89.

73 Ibid., 92.

74 Lampe, J., The Bulgarian Economy in the Twentieth Century (London, 1986), 39.Google Scholar

75 Robert College, established in 1861, was the very first American missionary school abroad. Significantly, Robert College graduated more Bulgarians than any other ethnic group, and five of its graduates went on to become prime ministers, while many others became ambassadors, industrialists, and other people of import in post-1878 autonomous Bulgaria. See the memoirs of its second president, Washburn, George, Fifty Years in Con-stantinople and Recollections of Robert College (New York, 1909), 95.Google Scholar

76 Bennitt, Mark, ed., History of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition: St Louis World's Fair of 1904 (St. Louis, 1905), 241 Google Scholar.

77 St. LouisDaily Globe-Democrat, 1 September 1904, 13–14

78 Bennitt, History ofthe Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 242.

79 On Illinden, see Brown, The Past in Question, and Chotzidis, Angelos, Gounaris, Basil, and Panayotopoulou, Anna A., eds., The Events of 1903 in Macedonia as Presented in European Diplomatic Correspondence (Thessaloniki, 1993).Google Scholar

80 Tsentralen Durzhaven Arkhiv (TsDA, Central State Archive, Sofia, Bulgaria), f. 3k, op. 8, e. 594, p. 40.

81 Ibid., p. 15.

82 Ibid., p. 58.

83 Ibid., pp. 29–31,41.

84 Ibid., p. 17.