Sylwia Siedlecka Univeristy of Warsaw/Polish Academy of Sciences Ph. +48/

Transcription

1 Sylwia Siedlecka Univeristy of Warsaw/Polish Academy of Sciences Ph. +48/ Art, politics and intellectuals in totalitarian Bulgaria (Blaga Dimitrova). The key issue of my paper is the image of the intellectualist in the Communist period in Bulgaria. My analysis are based on incident related to the public activity of the Bulgarian writer and intellectualist Blaga Dimitrova ( ). I would like to focus on the period starting from the late 1970s till On the one hand, it was the decline of Communism, the time of its erosion and degeneration, but on the other hand, it was also the period of improving the communication between Eastern and Western countries. Bulgarian Communism was not so hermetic and the approaching, exchange of opinions and dialogue between the elites in Communist bloc was becoming more possible. My analysis is related to this transitional period in recent past. In this particular time context I would like to ask questions about the definition of political opposition and its peculiar meaning for the Bulgarian intellectual elite. In the People s Republic of Bulgaria, which was the official name of Bulgaria between , this concept should be analysed in a specific way, different those that could be applied to the USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia or Hungary. 1

2 The key issue of my paper is the image of the intellectualist in the Communist period in Bulgaria. My analysis are based on incident related to the public activity of the Bulgarian writer and intellectualist Blaga Dimitrova ( ). I would like to focus on the period starting from the late 1970s till On the one hand, it was the decline of Communism, the time of its erosion and degeneration, but on the other hand, it was also the period of improving the communication between Eastern and Western countries. Bulgarian Communism was not so hermetic and the approaching, exchange of opinions and dialogue between the elites in Communist bloc was becoming more possible. My analysis is related to this transitional period in recent past. In this particular time context I would like to ask questions about the definition of political opposition and its peculiar meaning for the Bulgarian intellectual elite. In the People s Republic of Bulgaria, which was the official name of Bulgaria between , this concept should be analysed in a specific way, different those that could be applied to the USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia or Hungary. Between Eastern European elites remained under the pressure of political control and censorship. That was a general situation in the Communist bloc, yet in fact the situation of the elites in each particular country was different. Bulgaria was one of the most restrictive and monolithic systems in the whole Communist bloc 1. The period from 1956 to 1989 was called in Bulgaria Zhivkovo vreme which means the period of Zhivkov and it is taken from the name of the Bulgarian dictator Todor Zhivkov, one of the longest standing political leaders in the Communist bloc. Zhivkov with his very effective and cunning action strategy towards Bulgarian elits maintained the system in a very restrictive shape during the 30 years of his leadership. When it comes to this situation of the intellectual elites, after the end of the 2 nd World War, many of them embraced Communism. Their massive support for the new ideology can be explained in many ways, e.g. through the strong influences of Russia which was one of the main ideological sources for 19 th century Bulgaria. After World War II Communism was also a natural choice for those who did not accept the pro-fascist politics of the wartime Bulgarian government and its official support for the Axis powers. However, after the revolutionary period in the 40 s and 50 s many of Bulgarian intellectuals became desillusioned, especially when the crimes of Stalinism came to light. The year 1956 opened the period of the Bulgarian thaw and a relative liberalisation of political and cultural life in 1 Juda C. (2003), Pod znakiem BRL-u. Kultura i literatura bułgarska w pułapce ideologii. Kraków: Universitas. 2

3 Bulgaria. But that did not mean that it was the start of the true liberalisation. The Bulgarian thaw had a rather declarative meaning. Addmitedly, the intellectuals and artists gained more freedom, but for a very short time and to a limited extend. In the 1970s and 1980s the system s crisis even deepened. It was more and more hard to keep the Communist status quo because by that time the regime had totally lost confindence in the eyes of society. The People's Republic of Bulgaria became a surface reality, with many showy marches, parades and other public events organized by the political leaders 2. The main purpose all of those spectacular initiatives was to camouflage the deep degradation and decay in the structures of the Communist party. Through those spectacular events the Communists wanted to legitimize the system and keep their government or Party posts. Besides, the last two last decades of Communist Bulgaria were marked by a significant regress in historiography, by comeback of mythologizing of the past, especially with regard to the sources of Bulgarian genealogy. It was specifically the thrakian origin to the Bulgarian people that was subject to various kinds of historiographical manipulation. After the political thaw of the 1950s and 1960s and the illusionary liberalisation the centralist politcal and cultural model came back. The 1970s were a peculiar period in Communist Bulgaria. In the late 1970s the country was preparing to celebrate 1300-years of its statehood. Many spectacular events were being planned. It is in that time that many academic institutions were founded and a number of historical and archaeological research projects were launched. One of the most important of them was an extensive study on the Thrakian roots of the Bulgarian people. The study was later internationalised when as one of its outcomes the spectacular Thracian Gold Treasures exhibition was showed in over 25 cities across the world. The exhibition brought much acclaim in many countries. The lack of political opposition in the 1960s and 1970s was one of the features of Bulgarian totalitarianism. That does not mean that there was a total lack of opposition towards the regime. It did exist, only in a peculiar dimension. The specificity of the Bulgarian elites in that period could be seen in an incident which happened in 1977 and was connected with the name of Blaga Dimitrova. Dimitrova was an important and significant person of the 2 nd part of the latter part of the 20 th century in Bulgaria. She was not only an artist (writer, poet, playwright), but also an influential intellectual, and, after the first democratic elections in the 2 Mигeв B. (2008), Пoлcкaтa кpизa, Coлидapнocт и Бългapия ( ), Coфия: Kлимeнт Oхpидcки, p

4 1990s she also served as Bulgaria s vice president. Dimitrova s biography was quite representative of many biographies of intellectuals in her generation (born in the 1920 th ). During World War II she was a member of The Workers Youth League, which was part of the Bulgarian resistance movement, while the country itself was an ally of the Axis. After World War II Dimitrowa was highly acclaimed by the communist government. After the Bulgarian Thaw (1956) she was already renowned for her many books, translations of literature and public activity. But in the same time her works became more critical of the government and were criticized for not being politically correct. Having written a number of books critical toward the Bulgarian totalitarian regime Dimitrova lost the privilegies to which only the politicaly correct writers were entitled. In 1977 an incident happened in Bulgaria which had large scale repercussions for the society at large. It all started when Blaga Dimitrova was asked to give an interwiev to a wellknown French journal Les nouvelles Litteraires. The French journalist Annie Daubenton interwieved Dimitrova and asked her about the political and social changes in Bulgaria. Are there dissidents in Bulgaria or not? that was the key question in the interwiev 3. Answering that question, Dimitrova said that no opposition understood as an organized movement existed in Bulgaria. On the other hand, she claimed that there was the opposition on a noninstitutional level present in the activities of individual people. What she meaned by these activities, were grass-root initiatives, that is informal manifestations of protest or resistance. Most of them were about the freedom of speech and expression. Answering the French journalist s question, Dimitrova put herself as an example.. I am not a dissident, she said, I do not feel as part of an opposition structure because such a structure does not exist. The symbolic space to express my point of view are my works. Dimitrova was talking not just about herself, but also about other Bulgarian intellectuals: All of us should take a position toward the country There are intellectuals in my country who work in silence, and no one knows about it Emigration is not a solution We should judge the resistance of the writer taking into account the diffficulties they meet on their way. We should fight for freedom everyday Quotation found in A. Cлaвoв (1995). Бългapcкa литepaтypa нa paзмpaзявaнeтo, transl. from English by Б. Дpaгoмиpeцкa. Coфия, p

5 One should be aware the fact that opposition, construed as an influencial social group, did not exist in Bulgaria. The concept of the silent work of intellectuals used by Dimitrova reflects the situation of the elites in Bulgaria. Individual people contacted each other, but it was simply a dialog between people, without any institutional support or activities, as it was the case with the cultural underground in Czechoslovakia, clandestine circulation in Poland or the USSR. There was no opposition network, e.g. group meetings, unofficial organizations in Bulgaria. As Atanas Slavov claims, it was this individual dimension that represented the main feature of Bulgarian anti-communist resistance. That particular context implied the ethical power of the Bulgarian opposition, but also about its political weakness. The ineffectivity of Bulgarian resistance lied in the lack of shared aims of the intellectuals. Moreover, in popular perception they did not exist as a coherent social group. As a result, they simply did not have any collective identity and could not influence the public opinion. The political weakness of the intellectuals in the period of Communism could be explained in many ways. One of the essential causes of that was the cultural policy of the first secretary Todor Zhivkov and his very specific attitude toward the intellectuals. His politics toward the elites and artists was liberal just on the surface. Zhivkov used to say that there was no censorship in Bulgaria. It was true since in Bulgaria there was no separate institution tasked with censoring books, the press and other forms of publications. But the strategy of Zhivkov was very perverse. In the absence of institutionalized censorship people had to become self-censors. They started to censore their works and thoughts in their minds. This strategy of Zhivkov s atomized the group of intellectuals and artists in a very effectively way. There was no such enemy as the external censor, therefore there was harder to rise in revolt. In communist Bulgaria the most frequent form of resistance was silent resistance, refusal of the people to participate in the official cultural and political life. The authors who refused to write politicaly correct books, did not exist in the popular perception. The intellectuals who did not want to support Communism, would lose their jobs or posts and were socially and economically discriminated against. With they were doing was unknown to most people, because it was impossible to circulate information about their fate to the general public. It is interesting to compare the philosophical inspirations of the cultural elites in Bulgaria with the sources of identity searched by the elites in other political systems in the Communist bloc. It is most visible in the lives of writers. After 1956 many anti-communist Russian writers decided to focus on the past as the source of identity and tried to revive the 5

6 idea of Russian Messianism, viewed in a holistic worldwide context. In comparision to the Russian sources of identity, Bulgarian dissidents worked in the opposite direction. What inspired them, was the idea of individual transformation and the refusal to be part of the show organized by the regime. The Bulgarian model was similar to the Czechoslovak one to a certain degree. As is the case with any movement, Czechoslovak dissidents had to use a certain point of reference, which would serve as an idea helpful in consolidating the society into a coherent group. What was that idea? It was the universalist idea of humanity and the European intellectual heritage applied to individual members of the Czechoslovak society. How was that idea materialised in real life? For the Czechoslovak dissidents that universalist idea of humanity, when internalised, should motivate individuals to change themselves morally and change the society at the grass-roots level. One of the authors of this concept was Vaclav Havel who created the idea of life in truth. Coming back to the interview with Dimitrova published in Les Nouvelles Litteraires in 1977, the definitions of revolt and political opposition used by the Bulgarian intellectual turned out to be miscomprehended. The French journalist who did the interview drew the conclusion that Bulgarian non-communist intellectualls were at the sime time members of the opposition. She therefore underscored the revolt s political aspect which was in fact only marginal. The interview was accompanied by the journalist s comments in which she stressed that political dimension and Dimitrova s statement, against her will, became a pretext for the Bulgarian regime to call her attitude as antistate. As Natalia Christova maintains, the misunderstanding of the term dissident comes in a large measure from identifying the term by the Westerners with being anti-communist 5. In the aforementioned conversation with Dimitrova the French journalist saw the role of Bulgarian dissidents as equal to the Soviet model of opposition which was better known in the West and identified with anti-communism per se and with such people as Solzhenitsyn. In the Bulgarian case the social dimension was not that visible and did not have an institutional background. It was therefore not the anti-communism sensu stricto. The misunderstanding I am analysing here shows that the Western and Eastern intellectual elites communicated in a language they understood differently. In the 1970s the 5 Хpиcтoвa Н. (2005). Cпeцификa нa бългapcкoтo диcидeнтcтвo. Bлacт и интeлигeнция г. Плoвдив: Лeтepa, p

7 dialog between Eastern-Cenral Europe and Western Europe, then non-existant for decades, was again becoming possible. Information could cross the Iron Curtain more easily. It was the symbolic dimension of the communication, hovewer, that was problematic. The greatest hindrance to that communication was the different representations, symbolic languages and the different ways of defining notions, specifically those from the vocabulary of politics. The notion of dissidence was one of the most problematic and difficult to translate ones for it was so strongly related to the local forms of Communism in all of the countries lying East of the Iron Curtain. Just as there was no one single kind of Communism, there was no one single form of opposing it. 7