/ world today news/ “It’s amazing how little people think and how much they want to make decisions.”
This was the thought of Frederick II the Great, the successful Prussian king, hated by his father for his love of French literature, the fine arts, and Berlin’s urban planning, whose architecture echoed the might of the Prussian army.
I am reminded of these words on the occasion of the recent public unrest surrounding the preservation or dismantling of the “1300 Years of Bulgaria” monument of our famous artist, the sculptor Prof. Valentin Starchev. Say speeches, they are similar in degree of tension to the removal of Prime Minister Videnov from power, the “siege” of the Parliament and the burning of the Party House.
But, while the above listed manifestations of the border of legality were leavened by active party intervention and why not – by suggestions of external forces, now it is a matter of a mute monument.
A monument like any other, with the peculiarity that it is quite avant-garde in form and is located in the center of Sofia. And we know that in matters related to monumental arts, urban planning solutions and architectural styles, the native is traditionally restrained – these things affect him little, and they probably only slightly depend on him. It is enough to remember the destruction of the mausoleum of Georgi Dimitrov, for which the initiators and contractors-activists of a now defunct political party brought water from nine ravines to prove the lack of building documents, administrative permits and other formal grounds, only just to remove a symbol of a bygone era, they say. After all, their arguments turned out to be fabricated and without archival evidence… And the solid building could have another purpose, charged with a new meaning, there were interesting ideas for it at the time.
However, if a mausoleum in the SDS era could easily be declared an unnecessary monument to a contested communist leader, a “tomb containing a mummy”, “a symbol of obscurantism in the center of the capital” and so on, what are the driving forces behind its removal now? on a politically neutral monument dedicated to the long thirteen-century history of Bulgaria?! True, Starchev’s work has a rather bold plastic solution and too revolutionary for its time /1981/. But isn’t it precisely sculptors like Prof. Starchev, Vladimir Ginovski, Prof. Krum Damyanov, Velichko Minekov and a handful of others who showed the Bulgarians through their works the plastic face of their own history?
Recently, the mayor of Vratsa raised the alarm that one of our symbolic monuments – that of Botev by Vladimir Ginovski – is collapsing in the center of the city. The damage made it “dangerous” and urgent repair and strengthening was needed. However, there is no talk of dismantling…….. If we send inspectors to the same city, most likely, on the wonderful figure of Sophronius by Krum Damianov, flaws can also be found due to the revolutionary combination of marble components with the bronze of the monument. Not to mention the cracks on the huge nine-meter monument of Levski nad Varosha in Lovech, which, if you want cheap sensations, can probably also be declared dangerous – a zer can “disconnect” from the top and sweep the entire old part of the city with its tones .
In our country, just walking on the sidewalk with holes and open manholes is already dangerous – is it!?
It is clear that the circumstances surrounding the relocation of the monument “1300 Years of Bulgaria” are not the result of concern for the visitors of the kindergarten in front of the National Palace of Culture, although every sane Bulgarian is aware of the chronic financial and organizational problems with large sculptural monuments, after even the figure of Tsar Osvoboditel in front of the Bulgarian parliament was repaired not by our country /as it should be-bel.a./, but by a private Russian sponsor.
For the “1300 Bulgaria” monument, part of the “circumstances”, for example, come down to the fact that when approving the project, the “royal daughter” L. Zhivkova and the more liberal artists around her liked it, while her all-powerful father and the old ossified cadres of the communist SBH were against the idea of the then young Starchev. It is also known that the monument was built somewhat hastily due to our eternal disorganization. Therefore, soon after the opening of the National Palace of Culture and the entire infrastructure surrounding this large-scale and daring urban planning solution for its time, defects were found in the construction, which, however, were already rectified.
During an unforgivably long period after 1989, the entire territory around the NDK was greatly neglected, and the space around Prof. Starchev’s work was turned into a sewer and a center for drug addicts.
And suddenly, a few years ago, it turned out that the monument was not only “dangerous”, but there were also examinations for this reason that it would completely disappear from its place. Specialists and people stood on their toes after the decision of the authorities to move the monument to Boyana was announced. This crude manipulation of consciousness and the attempt to change in an architectural environment we are accustomed to have clearly become more important…
It is clear that Starchev’s work hinders his detractors, that the thirteen-century history of Bulgaria for some is connected not with our rich past, but more with the name and work of the daughter of the communist leader Todor Zhivkov, that the mayor of Sofia and the municipal councilors are not very aware of what the moral and aesthetic damage will be from the destruction of an existing complex urban planning-architectural ensemble in the city center, where every decorative pave and bench were thought out and designed by specialists in advance. Apparently someone figured out that the very basic password “dangerous to viewers” was enough to start a demolition. Without even thinking a little.
Apparently they also overestimated the emotions of the descendants of the war dead whose plaques were originally on the monument’s site, thinking that they would support the destruction of a national monument just to see their ancestors’ names again on the modest old memorials. plates. If they restore them to their old place, of course, which I personally highly doubt…
In all the commotion, I am personally disturbed by the following – since two very important creative unions in our country with sole competence on the case – that of the artists and the architects – are categorically against moving the monument, why and how petty municipal officials, ill-wishers, anonymous “people’s masses”, obscure internet societies and just lumpens become the real reason for the demolition of symbolic monuments and the creation of tension in society?! I leave aside the question of copyright, according to which the monument – once built – can only be strengthened, and the removal is solely within the competence of its creator, who naturally does not burn with a desire to kill his “child”.
By the way, there was an “idea” about removing the monument to the Soviet Army. At that time, a lot of untrue and politically tendentious things were said, the plastics were periodically barbarically stained, and the area around this monument in the center of the city was left to weed by the municipality. Then, however, the officials felt that by listening too much to this too false “voice of the people” they could bring about a real spontaneous rebellion from party suggestions. And they fell silent.
Now things related to our thirteen centuries of history are left to ourselves. And that’s why, like true Munchov citizens from “Under the Yoke”, many intellectuals protested, and flames burned the dismantling crane to ashes – as a mysterious manifestation of popular discontent.
How many more years of democracy must pass for some to understand that, like any other society in a European country, the Bulgarian one is against any dismantling of historical symbols, that it hates sudden changes and that it hates bloody revolutions?
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Associate Professor Dr. Plamen Pachev, lecturer at Southwestern University.
#Monuments #bad #memory #manifestation #social #madness
