Experiencing, Representing, and Remembering Privacy in the Socialist State of Bulgaria

• In Event: Transgressing the Borders between the Public and the Private in State Socialist Bulgaria

Abstract

In the biographical interviews of people who lived under socialism stands the following distinction: the memories and stories of home, family, parents, and relatives are saturated with nostalgia and empathy, and vice versa - usually the opposite pole of feelings causes the memory of public life. The distinction between public and private is maintained throughout the entire period, but generational and social differences could be observed in the experience of their limits. The aim of the paper is to show how the private was changed in the conditions of state socialism (with an emphasis on late socialism) and how it was constructed in various discourses - art, cinema and some everyday practices.

Author

• Ana Luleva, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies BAS (Bulgaria)