The Past of the Socialist Childhood through the Lens of the Bulgarian Literature
Keywords:
state socialism, Childhood, literature, anthropology of postsocialismAbstract
The Childhood during the Statesocialist Bulgaria is thematized in a plethora of novels and autofictional literature, published in the last three decades. Many of these works pose the question “Is the past of my own childhood a ‘foreign country’ for me”? This is a question very close to the anthropological one: “Could we know and understand our own (childhood’s) past as insiders?” In this paper I will take a close look at the presentations of the Socialist Childhood in some popular Bul garian novels, written after the Fall of Communism by authors belonging to dif ferent generations. I will discuss them from an anthropological perspective. How this past is presented, reflected, and as such – becomes an important part of the cultural memory about the Bulgarian State Socialism, is the main research ques tion of this paper.
Downloads
References
Atkinson, Paul. 1997. “Narrative Turn or Blind Alley.” Qualitative Health Research 7 (3): 325–344.
Doubrovsky, Serge. 2013. “Autofiction.” Auto / Fiction 1:1. i–ii.
Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. 1994. “The Author as Anthropologist: Some West Indian Lessons about the Relevance of Fiction for Anthropology.” In: Exploring the Written: Anthropology and the Multiplicity of Writing, ed. Eduardo P. Archetti, 167–196. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press.
Etkind, Alexander. 2004. “Hard and Soft in Cultural Memory: Political Mourning in Russia and Germany.” Grey Room 16: 36–59.
Fassin, Didier. 2014. “True Life, Real Lives: Revisiting the Boundaries between Ethnography and Fiction.” American Ethnologist 41 (1): 40–55.
Georgieva, Galina. 2012. „Tagata na edno pokolenie ili metafizika na soca.” Literaturen vestnik 24: 5.
http://www.bsph.org/members/files/pub_pdf_1290.pdf. (Accessed July 14, 2021).
Gospodinov, Georgi. 2011. Fizika na tagata. Plovdiv: IK Zhanet45.
Gospodinov, Georgi. 2015. Physics of Sorrow. Rochester, NY: Open Letter.
Gospodinov, Georgi. 2015. “Seks po vreme na socializam: higiena, medicina i f izkultura.” In: Lyubovta pri socializma. Obrazci, obrazi, tabut, ed. Daniela Koleva, 224–234. Sofia: IK Riva/CAS.
Gospodinov, Georgi. 2020. Vremeubezhiste. Plovdiv: IK Zhanet45.
Gospodinov, Georgi. 2018. Vsichkite nashi tela. Svrahkratki istorii. Plovdiv: IK Zhanet45.
Gospodinov, Georgi & Yana Genova. 2004. Inventarna kniga na socialisma. Sofia: IK Prozorec.
Gospodinov, Georgi, Diana Ivanova, Kalin Manolov & Rumen Petrov, eds. 2006. Az zhivyah socialisma. 171 lichni istorii. Plovdiv: IK Zhanet45.
Gruev, Mihail & Diana Mishkova, eds. 2013. Balgarskiat komunizam. Debati i interpretacii. Sofia: IK Riva/CAS.
Hansen, Per Krogh. 2017. “Autofiction and Authorial Unreliable Narration.” In: Emerging Vectors of Narratology, eds. Per Krogh Hansen, John Pier, Philippe Roussin & Wolf Schmid, 47–60. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter.
Jenkins, Richard. 2002. “In the Present Tense: Time, Identification and Human Nature.” Anthropological Theory 2 (3): 267–280.
Kabakchieva, Petia. 2016. Komunisticheskite modernosti. Balgarskiat sluchai. Sofia: UI ‘Kl. Ohridski’.
Kassabova, Kapka. 2008. Ulitza bez ime. Detstvo i drugi premezhdiya v Balgaria. Sofia: Ciela
Kiossev, Alexander & Daniela Koleva, eds. 2017. Trudniat razkaz. Modeli na avtobiografichno razkazvane za socialisma mezhdu ustnoto i pismenoto. Sofia: IIBM Ciela.
Longo, Mariano. 2015. Fiction as Social Reality: Literature and Narrative as Sociological Resources. Ashgate.
Lozanov, Georgi & Georgi Gospodinov. 2016. The Afternoon of an Ideology. Sofia: Sofia City Art Gallery.
Luleva, Ana. 2006. „Pamet za socializma i avtobiografichno razkazvane“. In: Svakodnevna kultura u postsocialističkom periodu u Srbiji i Bugarskoj. Balkanska transformacija i evropska integracija. Zbornik Etnografskog instituta SANU 22, eds. Dragana Radojičić & Zorica Divac, 173–184. Beograd: Etnografski institut SANU.
Luleva, Ana, ed. 2013. Balgarskiat XX vek. Kolektivna pamet i nacionalna identichnost. Sofia: IK Gutenberg.
Luleva, Ana. 2013. “Transitional Justice and Memory Culture in PostSocialist Bulgaria.” Our Europe: Ethnography – Ethnology – Anthropology of Culture 2: 117–128.
Luleva, Ana, Evgenia Troeva & Petar Petrov. 2012. Prinuditelniat trud v Balgaria. Spomeni na svideteli. Zwangsarbeit in Bulgarien. Erinnerungen von Zeitzeugen (1941–1962). Sofia: Akademično izdatelstvo “Prof. Marin Drinov”, Prof. Marin Drinov Akademie – Verlag.
Mink, Louis O. 1987. Historical Understanding. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Mink, Louis O. 1970. “History and Fiction as Modes of Comprehension.” New Literary History 1 (3): 541–558.
Moskova, Rada. 2015. Pochti zhivot. Sofia: Fakel.
Ricoeur, Paul. 1984. Time and Narrative. Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Roberts, Brian. 2002. Biographical Research. Philadelphia: Open University Press.
Todorova, Maria N., Augusta Dimou & Stefan Troebst, eds. 2014. Remembering Communism: Private and Public Recollections of Lived Experience in Southeast Europe. Budapest and New York: CEU Press.
Znepolski, Ivaylo. 2001. „Nevolite na istoriata na segashnoto vreme: posrkomunisticheski upotrebi na pametta.” In: Istoria, razkaz, pamet, ed. Znepolski Ivaylo, 207–236. Sofia: Dom na naukite za choveka i obstestvoto.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography SASA
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
