EN
The article presents Polish research on the Bulgarian national mythology. First person to study the subject was Teresa Dabek-Wirgowa. Within the spectrum of her interest was the problem of personified symbols of values crucial for the process of forming cultural community (e.g., tsar, bumpkin, and 'hayduck'), issues concerned with the image of a stranger in the Bulgarian culture, as well as the category of mythologised national space. In the 1990s. Further studies have been taken up by such scholars as Maria Bobrownicka, Wojciech Galazka, Jolanta Sujecka, Celina Juda, and Grazyna Szwat-Gylybowa. The researchers focused on the subsequent aspects of myth-creating tendency of the Bulgarians who constantly reinvent their tradition. The article attempts also to reflect on the problem of the social function of such research since it is stigmatized with 'symbolic violence'.