The Road to Socialism: Transport Infrastructure in Socialist Bulgaria and Yugoslavia (1945–1989) by Lyubomir Pozharliev (review)

Reviewed by: The Road to Socialism: Transport Infrastructure in Socialist Bulgaria and Yugoslavia (1945–1989) by Lyubomir Pozharliev Nelly Bekus (bio) The Road to Socialism: Transport Infrastructure in Socialist Bulgaria and Yugoslavia (1945–1989) By Lyubomir Pozharliev. Göttingen: V Schipper, Driving Europe, 2008; Zeller, Driving Germany, 2007; Guldi, Roads to Power, 2012). This book by Lyubomir Pozharliev is the first comprehensive study of transport infrastructure in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria between 1945 and 1989, and it makes an important contribution to the field by bringing the Socialist cases of road development into dialogue with existing scholarship. It develops the idea of social constructivism by examining the roads' political and ideological functions within the broader context of socialist modernization. While the book does not cover the postcommunist transformation, the analysis of transport infrastructure as an integral element of shaping imagined communities reveals the inherent tensions and negative dynamics that resulted in crises after 1989. The book is divided into nine chapters and draws on a wide range of sources and methodologies, including comparative study and interpretative discourse analysis of official documents, public speeches, media reports, archival materials, and statistical data. This wealth of materials allows Pozharliev to convincingly demonstrate similarities and differences between the End Page 727 two states and highlight the role of roads in shaping the symbolic maps of the two countries by connecting some provinces while reinforcing the peripheral status of others. Chapter 1 starts with the conceptual introduction of the topic and shows the interconnections between the core categories that frame the analysis, such as infrastructure, social functions of transport, political ideology, and national identity. It demonstrates the ambivalent nature of transport, which can be traced in building hierarchies among the two countries' different regions and population groups. Chapters 2 and 3 provide the historical context of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, explaining their approaches to socialism and geopolitical standing vis-à-vis the Cold War divide. Indeed, Bulgaria was the most loyal Soviet satellite and followed the path of building "real socialism" within a concerted venture of the Socialist Bloc. Yugoslavia, in contrast, diverted from cooperation with the Soviet Union and led a non-aligned movement that aspired to be free of the Cold War restraints of both socialist and capitalist systems. Furthermore, while Bulgaria embarked on creating a homogenous nation-state, Yugoslavia highlighted the autonomy of different ethnic groups while also building a common identity. As Pozharliev demonstrates, all these differences are essential for understanding the role played by infrastructure in constructing distinct models of socialist modernity. In the following chapters, the study scrutinizes the domestic contexts of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. It shows how transport infrastructure exposed the contrast between pragmatic efficiency and utopian visions of socialist modernity. Finally, the ninth chapter investigates the cross-border relationship between Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and the broader European context, demonstrating the tensions between the function of roads in national homogenization and the logic of the international engagement of Socialist states. In the conclusion, the author reasserts his thesis about the ultimate failure of road infrastructure to achieve two Socialist states' strategic objectives, with their aspirations to bring into reality the enhanced visions of a new socialist identity for individuals and countries. While the author mentions in the introduction that the study touches on railway transport, it remains unclear to what extent the book's central argument could be reinforced or, on the contrary, challenged if railway mobility and connectivity were part of the study and to what extent planning the automobile roads complemented or substituted for existing or planned railways. Overall, the book provides a multifaceted analysis of transport infrastructure through the lenses of ideological discourses, political imagination, practical implementations, economic and symbolic underpinnings, and impact on societies. Complemented with comparative methodology, this approach produces a thorough and theoretically informed study that will...