What is more interesting than the fact that the claims are being put forward by nation states that only came into existence ex post facto—the same mechanism Austria uses to claim Mozart—isthat the constructive mechanism being used to provide a figure of national identity—Orpheus as a Thracian—is also used to exclude certain groups from it, i.e. to construct Others out of Pomaks, Roma, Turks etc.

We are now in south-eastern Bulgaria, moving in the general direction of Turkey. It is an area where there are a number of mixed Moslem and Christian villages (Shiroko Laka, for example) as well as some that are predominantly Moslem. We have been told that some of the Moslem cemeteries are guarded. Asking why elicits some interesting (to be followed up) and some unlikely responses, amongst them: because Moslem skinheads damage the gravestones and blame it on Christian Bulgarians…

For me the toy-like, do-it-yourself appearance of the mini minarets on some of the village mosques are all the more imposing because of their simplicity and are suggestive of the religious intimacy of some of the early Christian chapels – a grass roots relationship to religion.

The road to the Orpheus cave sometimes looks as if it has worn its way down through the rock organically, over the ages, like the small, active river it follows. The cave itself is damp, very cool, electrically lit. Natural phenomena such as caves, ravines and the like which serve as surfaces for superficial cultural projections—a Devil’s Gorge, for example, exists in Germany, Chile, Canada, Bhutan etc. and the many caves in Bulgaria and Greece which are supposed to have been Orpheus’ entry to the underworld—have never held more than a passing, landscape-as-picture interest for me. Not being a geologist, holes in the ground are only interesting if they are, or have been, lived in or, as with some cenotes in Mexico, not only provided a water supply in a karst region but were intimately bound up in the ritual life of the society.

After walking down into the cave with its underground river, cool and moist and pleasant as a contrast to conditions outside, we retrace our route to Smolyan and, without stopping, head on to Zlatograd which is where we are spending the night. Zlatograd is only a quarter of its size but was also involved in producing textiles, originally woollens. Its main attraction today are the houses – which have been restored into a private ‘ethnographic complex’. With 150 beds in a number of different traditional houses, an ethnographic (read: folk craft and costumes) museum and a series of small handcraft workshops, woodturning, metal work and weaving, it is strikingly modern. It is well on its way to being part of the so-called heritage industry in which a past that has become uneconomic is recreated in a form that is sanitised, idealised and publicly performed, then set to producing goods that have been superseded either technically or financially. These are sold as souvenirs and therefore compete on a different market. Handmade wooden spoons as nostalgia heritage items.