RETHINKING THE THEATRE HERITAGE FROM THE TIME OF COMMUNISM
CONFERENCE PAPERS, VARNA, 4-5 JUNE 2023
The purpose of the conference, organized by Homo Ludens Foundation on June 4 & 5 in the frames of the International Theatre Festival Varna Summer 2023, was to off er diff erent perspectives and to debate the question how the histories of arts (especially of theatre) for the period 1945–1989 are written / recounted. This quesrion refers to value choices but also to methodological strategies. How to recount the culture of Eastern Europe from the time of communism for the future generations? Which should be the dominant historical perspective? – of the empirical description of processes, facts and events, of the contextualization of art works and authors, of the reconstruction of the censorship’s mechanisms or of the resistances against the political regime? How to construct the historical narrative about this period? – following the line of art works that retain their former value even after the fall of the regime or following those which were negations of official normative aesthetics? How to find the balance between the impartial analysis of the art language and the assessment of the civic engagement of its creators?
In this book are selected and published the papers of the participants in the conference divided into three sections: The Problem of Historical Narrative, Normativity and Escapes, and The Question of Legacy. The conference and the issued of papers were realized in a frames of a project supported by the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria’s Recovery and Development Programme for Private Cultural Organisations.
Editorial Board: Prof. Kamelia Nikolova, Prof. Nikolay Iordanov, Assoc. Prof. Rumyana Nikolova, Angelina Georgieva, PhD
Complied & Edited: Kamelia Nikolova and Nikolay Iordanov
Translation from bulgarian: Kristana Ivanova, Alexander Donev
Cover: Venelin Shurelov
Preprint: www.mind-print.com
Sofia, 2023
ISBN 978-619-90678-5-7
This project is supported by the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria’s „RECOVERY AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME FOR PRIVATE CULTURAL ORGANISATIONS“