‘Europe’ as Hope: A Farmer’s Viewpoint from Bulgaria

Abstract

The following analysis is based on an autobiographical interview with Yavor, a 42-year-old farmer from a small village in Central Bulgaria. Pleasantly located at the southern foot of the Balkan Mountains, this area provides excellent conditions for growing roses, lavender, and other essential oil plants. Yavor is married, with two teenage children. Together with his elder brother, he raises cows for milk and meat. More recently Yavor has been very involved in developing the organic farming of mint and roses. In general Yavor did not seem to have any problems narrating his life, although it was evident that he was trying to condense parts of the story he felt were not relevant. He put a lot of emotion and passion into his narrative and, compared with other interviews from the Bulgarian sample, his is one of the richest in terms of fluctuations of intonation and narrator input. We will trace Yavor’s story as he recreates it in his narrative, along with its descriptive, explanatory, and argumentative schemas. Yavor’s interview is dotted with background constructions, self corrections and hectic narrative sequences, which might be due to the constraints of telling a life story in such a short time, rather than indicative of a lack of biographical work. However, the narrative as a whole departs from a personal perspective and tries to give a ‘bird’s-eye view’ of the social situation of farmers in Bulgaria, a view which lacks reflection on personal development and critical attempts to understand personal misconceptions of oneself (Schütze, 2008a).