Public Demonstrations in Bulgaria and the Faces of Bulgarian Activism Today: A Case Study of the 2022 Lukov March and a Counter-Demonstration Organised by Feminist Mobilisations

Abstract

This article is a case study of the 2022 Lukov March and a counter-demonstration to this march. The Lukov March is an annual event organised in Sofia by the far-right Bulgarian National Union, and the so-called Anti-Lukov March is a counter-demonstration organised by, among others, the group called Feminist Mobilisations. The article is based on two years of research conducted while working on a co-authored master’s thesis, involving netnography, participant observation and narrative interviews with women who identify with feminist or far-right activism. The study aims to analyse both events and both groups in the context of performative activist actions in the urban space of Sofia, with a particular focus on the issue of the performative body and performance in social space. In our work, we use the method of critical discourse analysis and anthropological methods.

Keywords

• activism
• Lukov March
• Feminist Mobilizations
• Bulgarian Nationalist Union
• Sofia
• Bulgaria