Nursing the newborn nation-state: The changing circumstances of the nursing profession in Bulgaria (1878-1941)

Résumé 0

This article examines the gradual professionalization of nursing in Bulgaria. Within the context of the deep social transformations of the post-Ottoman space, nursing provides a useful lens through which to explore in gendered terms the evolving relationship between public health, the process of state-building, and civic organizations. The history of nursing in Bulgaria falls into two distinct phases, corresponding to changes in Bulgarian state nationalism, in tandem with intervention by international organizations. In the years when the state was developing militarily (1878-1918), nursing was marginal to society, but in the interwar period, the public health nurse emerged as a key player in the discourse surrounding social reform: the status of nurses changed from an occupation for poor women to a profession for middle-class women. Despite these shifts, this article argues, there was a notable continuity in the perception and actual practice of nursing which was still operating within (neo)traditionalist gender regimes.