A link to the interview only:
https://www.bnt.bg/bg/a/nostalgiya-po-sotsializma#recap
The nostalgia of communism
TV show: ‘’The Day Starts with Culture’’
TH – The Television host
K - Krasimira Butseva
TH: Our show continues with a topic related to the socialist nostalgia in relation to one, or
two projects of the young photographer Krasimira Butseva who lives in the United Kingdom.
TH: Hello and welcome!
K: Hello!
TH: I think it is good to have this conversation right now. What is your opinion about the
destiny of the monument in front of the National Palace of Culture? Of course, you may not
share your thoughts, if you would like.
K: I think that it should be preserved. Because it is somehow architectural work, a sculpture
– and despite the period in which it was made. I think that this is my opinion about all of the
monuments from the Socialist time, because they are all works of art done by artists despite
the fact that they were commissioned by the government or someone else. I don’t think the
monuments should be destroyed, they are our culture.
TH: Calling them ‘’monuments’’ at the end of the day, they are related to our memory and
reminding us something. Actually your works is exploring how memory works for this period
of time. But not a memory that just preserves and collects, but a memory that realizes and
thinks, we can see this from the tittles of your practice – we can see the word Utopia and
Unhappy i.e. you are already giving your thoughts about this time. Could we start from
Slices of Red? This is what we see behind us.
K: Yes, this project is inspired by personal family stories with which I grew up, but which I’ve
never seen as different or interesting. Only because they were told to me when I was little,
as any other person in my age would have heard the stories of communism from their
family. But when I left for England and spend a few years there, I started to see the world
very different from how I used to when I was living here, the world in which I grew up and
these stories started to impress me. Especially when any of these stories are told to
someone in England, for them they sounded very absurd. No one believed me that this
happened in my country and to my parents, and that it didn’t happen hundred years ago.
And this was when I decided to try and create an image, an impression of the experience of
communism from my point of view, because the stories I am using are very specific. But the
feelings and memories are the same as how other people have experienced them not only
in Bulgaria but in any other Soviet Republic.
TH: By the way, you know what worries me in your work and specifically the way you write
in your work, that in these individual stories and subjective ways to live the socialist time,
you are trying to make a collective story that will sound universal.
K: Yes.
TH: Aren’t you risking here, because no matter what the time is there is no way for a story
to be collective and universal?
K: Yes, you are completely right. But one of the stories in my book is from my Grandmother
and the story itself is about the nationalization – which is a process that happened in every
family, not to every person but in every family. Which was a process when the government
took people’s houses, hotels, businesses etc. And in that sense, I was seeing this as a
universal, because it happened to a lot of people. Even though the story I am telling is from
my grandmother who shared her personal memory, the feeling and experience is the same.
Some of the other stories are from my father, who used to be a rebel – he wasn’t against
the regime but he was following what he thought was right. And I think that there is a big
part of the people who wanted to express themselves no matter if they are against or
supporting the communist system. And in that sense that the stories are universal not
literally.
TH: I was a teenager in the 80s and this reminds me of what you are saying. I’ve always
wanted to wear long hair at school and this wasn’t a revolution against the system, but it
was a big problem for them and this is a fact. And the accent in the Utopian, another of your
projects?
K: I am exploring the nostalgia of the Bulgarian society.
TH: Is this nostalgia fake?
K: I don’t think so. There are many different points of view which I’ve explored regarding
this topic. For example, I would never blame the people for being nostalgic, because I
completely understand them and why are they feeling like this.
TH: We are nostalgic for our childhood. The fact that it happened to be in that system
doesn’t mean that we are nostalgic for the period.
K: Yes, this is one of the reasons. Despite the repressions and restrictions of the communist
time, for which people are completely aware this is what have formed their individualities
and identities. Also, they have lived their childhood and adolescence through that time and
they will always want to go back there no matter from which country they are and despite
the conditions they have lived in.
TH: I don’t know if you are regularly in Sofia. But have you noticed that on the buildings in
the centre the graffiti aren’t the communist symbols but are the swastika. Do you think this
is nostalgia?
K: No, I think this is a kind of illiteracy.
TH: Yes, because the people drawing them haven’t been born in the 50s.
K: Yes, I don’t think they even know what they mean. They probably know what they
reference but that will be pretty much their whole knowledge. I think this is a way for them
to show they are rebels, rather than a well-thought decision.
TH: You are visiting labour camps from the 50s and photographing them? What is the
feeling of doing this?
K: Now, I am working on my final work for my Master’s degree, which is for the labour
camps. My family is not related to any of these events, but last summer very randomly I
watched a short film about the camps and after that I was very shocked. Because I had no
clue about these things, this information has never reached me from the media, news,
television, school or my parents. And this made me feel as if I must try to tell this story again
and see what happened with these places. And specifically, to capture the passage of time
on these places. Some of the buildings are remaining on some of the locations, while others
are completely empty without a trace that something had happened there and now they
have turned into beautiful landscapes. But even where there are remains the nature has
taken over.
TH: I want to ask you a bad question, not a nice one. How old are you?
K: I am 23 years old.
TH: And have you studied in Bulgaria before going to University?
K: Yes.
TH: And were there lessons about communism in your history book?
K: Yes, they were. But they were at the end of the book which was studied at the end of the
year too when no one is paying that much attention. Communism has been mentioned, but
wasn’t studied in depth.
TH: So, you think that every young person should have a duty to remember and preserve
what the education officially hasn’t given or explained to them.
K: I don’t think so, not really. I think that it is good for people to be informed despite of their
age even. Because the new information expands the way you see the world and then you
look at some things in another way and become interested in other things or you start to
understand why the place you live in is such. Because the past is the core of our present.
TH: The problem is that for the close past there is no consensus in Bulgaria yet therefore
this is still handing and left behind.
TH: On what else are you currently working now? Where could we see your work in
Bulgaria?
K: In September, on the 15
th
, 16
th
and 17
th
there will be a group show in Plovdiv a part of
the Night of Museums and Galleries festival. The show will be with me and four other
photographers who are Bulgarian as well and whom I’ve met at University in England. We
are all exploring Bulgaria – different aspects of the country and there I’ll show the project
Slices of Red.
TH: Okay, great! When September approaches, we’ll remind our viewers to stop by your
show in Plovdiv. Thank you very much for visiting us! And wish you good luck.
K: Thank you too.