ABSTRACT
The study of Fascism in Bulgaria between 1920s and 1944 is given to different ideological interpretations. This essay explores the notion of the Superman as a dual metaphor for the Political athlete, and for the body as a Politicum in the form of three interrelated arguments. These concern the ideological preoccupation of Bulgaria’s Fascist sport, its subjugation to and departures from German Fascist sports doctrine, and the socio-anthropological premises for the emergence of the Superman. It is argued that the ideology and practice of the Bulgarian vaariant of the Superman were inconsistent, and in the main replicated ‘mainstream Fascism’. However, Bulgaria’s Fascist sports ideology and practice clearly embraced nationalism, chauvinism and violence in pursuit of policies and anti-Communism, and the state introduced patterns of development which continued into the Communist period after 1945.
