(Bulgarian Culture during the Communist Era – Political Management, Ideological Basis, Institutional Regimes)
Author: Ivan Elenkov
Published by the Institute for Studies of the Recent Past, Open Society Institute and Ciela Publishers
Sofia 2008
This book is result of the extensive research of Ivan Elenkov conducted as part of the Communism Research Project.
ISBN: 978-954-28-0338-6
Summary
A subject matter of research in this work are the political governance, ideological reasons and the institutional organisation of the culture during the period of Communism in Bulgaria. Therefore, as a generalization of the cultural politics of the regime during that era, the title “the Cultural Front” was chosen.
First chapter from the research traces back the basic tendency in the establishing of the institutionalised system for governance of the Bulgarian culture in the dawns of the Fatherland Front era – the administrative centralisation. In it is examined the short but with important consequences existence of the Ministry of Propaganda and the Ministry of Information and Arts. The Ministries lay down the foundations of the super-centralised institutional circumscription, supervision and control of the cultural institutions, organisations, initiatives and manifestations. They are also the State’s legitimised institutional embodiment of the monolithic vision for a “national culture”, the early ideological motif in the politics for the creation of a new official, ideological unified culture which goes beyond the inherited particularism and harshly obliterating the conditions for the continuation of its existence.
The second chapter of the book deals with the establishment which had an exceptional role in the process of “incorporating the intellectuals” (the Communistic “Gleichschaltung”) to the institutionalised standards of the culture in Fatherland Bulgaria – The Chamber of National Culture (1945-1947). The structural construction of the Chamber and its activities reach political centralisation of the intellectuals, thus a direct control over the cultural elite.
The third chapter of the work is devoted to the Committee of Science, Art and Culture (CSAC) and its functions of a central ideological institute between the years of 1948 and 1954. The historical-reconstructive line of the research shows, here as well, the structural organisation of the system for a state-political regulation of the culture. Parallel to it, the establishment of the new places for social cultural exchange are traced which are the perfect environment for unfolding the current official cultural policy of socialist Bulgaria. The reconstruction of the structure and the activities of CSAC reveal the implementation of the Marxist-Leninist ideology deeply in the cultural subject-matter of the Communist society.
The fourth chapter contains in itself an overview of the system for governance and regulations of the Socialist culture from 1954 until the beginning of the 1970s. The inclusion of this huge period in one chapter is based on the understanding of the slow development of the changes during these nearly two decades – starting with the planning of universal events for political enlightenment and agitational propaganda which were after that applied at accelerated rates and reflected on the whole society, not until the 1970s when changes in the cultural politics slowly start to creep in. They are connected with the long-term program projects which are part of a new technology for governance and control of differential social processes.
These projects are an unquestionable sign for a change of the practices for production and distribution of culture and therefore they could be considered as one of the important boarders in the history of the cultural politics of the Communist regime in our country. Their uplift at the beginning of the 1970s reveals the efforts made in order an efficient grip to be achieved on the multiplying new social spheres and cultural audiences seen in the general perspective of the changes in the social structure of the Socialist society. With the renewal of the ideological narratives and with the expanding of the field of the official taste, the program projects aim at the involvement of new social groups.
The rhetorical codes in the new program projects register the existing, from the end of the 60s and the beginning of the 70s, crisis in the content of the utopian classic of the Bulgarian Communism and from here – of the “The long-term complex program for elevating the role of art and culture so that a harmonic development of the individual and the society to be achieved in the stage of building the Developed Socialist Society”, of the programs “N. K. Roerich” and “Leonardo da Vinci”, of the International Children Assembly “Flag of Peace”, of the programs “V. I. Lenin”, “Konstantin-Cyril Philosopher”, “Georgi Dimitrov”, “Albert Einstein”, “Avicena”, “Lemonosov” and many more on which could be looked at as a regeneration of worn out but still important early symbols of the Communist project in our country.
The intended social functions of the programs are directed to achieve in “a new stage” a connection between all groups; directed to produce the new ideological homogeneity and cultural identity of the so-called “Developed (mature) Socialist society”.
The fifth chapter is devoted to processes which introduce gradually at the beginning of the 1960s the ushering of the culture in the dimensions of the individual consumption of the individual worker. At the beginning of the 1960s the Communist regime in Bulgaria pays attention to the consuming of goods and services which has never happened during all the years from the establishing of its power. The people of the new social system start to present themselves not only as a society of the heroic labour asceticism in the name of the future, but also as a society whose advantages are measurable according to the opportunities which open for every single member of that society in order this member to have multiple acquisitions in the present – to have their time for leisure in which the number of visits of the cinemas, theatres, concerts, art exhibitions and cultural events is constantly increasing, to have home life with conveniences and beautifully furnished houses, ensured recreation and trips and as a whole to lead a life which is not deprived even from luxury. From the beginning of that decade, the everyday life gradually turns into a field of ideological submission of a great importance to the regime and conceptualisations of a “Socialist way of life” start to portray unknown till that moment pictures of the concreteness of the human happiness during the Communism.
Sixth chapter deals with the long-term program projects from the 1970s as it concentrates on the two most important – The National program for Aesthetic Education of the Workers and The Long-term Complex Program for Elevating the Role of Arts and Culture so that a harmonic development of the individual and the society to be achieved in the stage of building the Developed Socialist Society. The second one is presented by the two most popular subprograms which paved the way of its “explosive start” – “Nicholas Konstantinovich Roerich” and “Leonardo da Vinci”.
The seventh chapter deals with another of the important projects of the 1970s – the one for the celebration of 1300 anniversary of the establishment of the Bulgarian country. The decision to discuss a single project in a whole chapter is not arbitrary; it is because through this project the “historisation of the culture” could be traced and it unfolded in the “reality of the anniversary” – the synthesis of the Bulgarian history with the Communist mythology and symbols in the nationalistic cult, articulated as open and including all the sparks of the thousand-year old Bulgarian cultural tradition.
Around the leading anniversary narrative – legitimation of the genesis of the Communist power and reconfirmation of the magnificence of the regime for ever – the explosion of the impressive anniversary errupts innumerable “anniversary activities” which the dissertational text reads as deeply connected with it subnarratives: the accomplished monumental celebratory building; the museum exhibitions; the hundreds art exhibitions; the exhibitions of Old Bulgarian literature and art; the large-scale anniversary publishing program; the hundreds theatrical productions made by special anniversary subprograms; the program of the Bulgarian cinematography with the anniversary historical super productions, the innumerable celebrations of the Bulgarian literature, “the enriched with anniversary events musical life”, the whole gigantic international program; in this respect, the celebratory scientific events are included too. As an in-depth reproduction of the anniversary subnarratives, the dissertational text deals also with the so-called “specialised anniversary activities” – the manufacturing of memorial signs and subjects – high honourable orders; installing of anniversary symbols in towns and villages, as well as in uninhabited areas, coins, souvenirs, ceramics, stamps, flags, diplomas, sport medals, posters, cards, calendars, badges, materials for photo show cases; similar is the conception for the adopted by the National Assembly law during the anniversary year 1981 – “Law for Amnesty”, etc.
The eight chapter examines the changes in the cultural politics of the regime during 1980s. The gradual return of the earlier propagandised imagery is outlined towards a clearer, more overt ideological narrative, sufficient to redirect the accents of the Bulgarian official culture, to favour a new network of propagandised regulations and to reshape stylistically the ideological preferences. The research does not contradicts the “Zhivkova epoch” with the followed after that activity of the Committee for Culture through the first half of the 1980s. The tendency for “hardening” of the cultural politics during the time of the chairman Yordanov is analysed as a crisis of the control over the liberty of expressions within the limits of the cultural pluralism from “the time of Luydmila Zhivkova”; “freedom” – possible only when she intercedes for “the authors” in her peculiar statute of “Zhivkova”.
For the final opening of the strivings after the ideological clarified official culture and “unity of the intelligentsia” in it, a great significance has the replacement of the personal names of the Turks in Bulgaria – from Turkish names to Bulgarian ones – noisily proclaimed and acquired a woeful fame as “Revival Process”. In the text of the book, arguments have been given about the transforming of the “historical theme” into a main ideological instrument for control of the “cultural front” and the transforming of the “historical” into a synonymous expression of the powerful supremacy of the regime from the middle of the 1980s.
The last chapter, chapter nine, deals with the dimension of the official culture and cultural politics, repercussions of the “processes of the perestroika” from the late second half of the 1980s. The nucleus around which the narrative revolves is the preparations over the scheduled for 15th and 16th of November 1989, Fifth Congress of the Bulgarian Culture which eventually did not take place.
Two are the key formulas which allow the research to go in-depth – they have been published innumerably during the last few years before the end of the Communism in our country – “new economic regulators” and “new structures of public self-government”. They are understood in the development of a process called in the research “economising of the ideology”, respectively, “economising the governance of the culture” as an indication of a process which gives the propagandist messages economic terms that present the new project of the regime for reorganisation of the “Socialist social system”.
“The economising” and its implementation on the structures for governance of the culture does not abolish in any way the defining position of the politics and the Party. “The economising the culture” introduces in the propaganda economic and organisational accents, directed to a change in the social statute of the cultural elite. Exploiting the vague liberal attitudes from that time of the power of the intellectual freedom and individual talent, the faith in professionalism and the miracle of the independent economic initiative, “the economising of the culture” tries to reshape the consolidating and weak dissident criticism against the regime in the economic rivalry between the “free non-profit organisations”. Eventually, the “new economic regulators” and the “new structures of self-governance of the spiritual life” are exhorted to realise a new political distribution of real economic resources in relation to randomly constituted, “free economic agents in the sphere of the spiritual production”; i.e. these terms describe with new words the old subjectivity of the party under the conditions of entirely uncontrollable political arbitrariness.
The conclusion summarizes and deepens some of the most important deductions drawn in the process of writing, concentrating in the final sentence: “The cultural front. The restless fight of the Communism for a re-assimilation of the culture in the present political agenda”.