HOW GOOD OF A MAN? TOWARDS THE PROBLEMATICS OF ONE HISTORIOGRAPHICAL DEPICTION OF KONSTANTIN STOILOV

Abstract

The text aims at deconstructing the historiographical image of the Bulgarian politician Kosntantin Stoilov that has been structured by the Bulgarian historian Veselin Metodiev’s book, “One very good man”, which blends the genres of biography, ethical essay, and historiography. For this purpose, the inquiry undertakes a close analysis of the combined functioning of the mechanisms of assertions and negations through which the idealization of the historiographical character proceeds. This inquiry is realized through the procedures of a metahistorical analysis, which investigates the linguistic and logical structures of the book in a deconstructive perspective, as it allows for an elaboration of implicit and non-intentional or even counter-intentional potentialities regarding the biographical and characterological construction of a historiographical character who is stated as exemplary by the narrative in both ethical and axiological aspects. The resulting conclusions point to those potentialities, ultimately demonstrating the arbitrariness and semantic indeterminism of historical facts, which subvert the ethically normative interpretations given by Metodiev’s discourse and are construed as rather pointing towards an unavoidable ambivalence of meaning, the last point being confirmed by persistent reference to other works, which depict Konstantin Stoilov’s personage in incommensurable ways. In this way, the inevitability of a crucial degree of deeply structured axiological relativity is suggested as Metodiev’s book’s being evaluated for its normative rigor, demonstrating the said relativity through the tropes of negation.