The renovation of this site of memory is necessary to establish the image of Dimitrovgrad as a modern community and tourist product. The redevelopment of the institution implies the enrichment and “retelling” of Dimitrovgrad’s history, the renovation of its infrastructure and its media potential for the socialization of a heterogeneous audience: from older and “remembering” locals, to foreign and “unfamiliar” visitors, to very young children through the integration of a Youth Centre in the museum space.
Category: Projects
Through the years of its existence the Institute for Studies of the Recent Past has initiated and implemented numerous projects and activities. With different scope and dimension they all try to provoke the institutional, educational social and individual capacity to know and understand the communist past.
Revisiting the Recent History of Bulgaria
По отношение на близкото българско минало в масовото съзнание съществуват два мита – митът за престъпния комунизъм и митът за добрия комунизъм, като до голяма степен двата мита съществуват паралелно, без първият мит да обезсмисля втория. Престъпленията от първите години на режима се признават, но се и опрощават в името на социалната му природа през последните две-три десетилетия. Този идеен разнобой на различни нива в обществото се явява сериозна пречка пред установяването на една трайна и стабилна демокрация, подронвайки психологическата и социалната база на личната политическа активност и индивидуалната стопанска инициатива.
Dissident Cultural Movements in the Eastern Block
Project “EUnderground” wants to bring the history closer to young citizens with a very unique topic which has received less attention so far. The project reveals a hidden and less accessible cultural…
Images from Persin, Belene – Drawings from a Communist Labour Camp
The immediate aim of the project is by using the 25th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the accompanying public interest to process and present as a traveling exhibition…
Remembering and understanding communism in Bulgaria
Тhe main challenge before our Institute now is to change the research perspective and direct our attention deeper into the everyday functioning of the regime, to elucidate the social system it created…
Oral History of Communism in Bulgaria (1944–1989)
a) In-depth interviews with the “inhabitants” of the communist regime and b) Call for life narratives and authentic diaries from the communist times. Period: 2010 – 2012 Our general goal is by…
Knowledge and Memory Policies
“Knowledge and Memory Policies: Public (Mis)Use of the Recent Bulgarian Past” is three year research project. Its basic premise is the lack of critical and profound mass of knowledge about the communist…