What's coming

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The blog is new and will fill up gradually. For now, I’m starting with a series of visual-diary posts produced as part of Vlad Naumescu’s CEU course Visual Anthropology and Ethnographic Filmmaking - short reflections on ethnographic films and course readings.

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‘The Bulgarian Berlin Wall Is Going Away Step by Step’: ‘Standby Transition’ and the Quest for ‘Europeanness’ and ‘Democracy’ in the Discourses Around the Dismantling of the Monument to the Soviet Army in Sofia

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To cite:  Koleva, R. 2024 . ‘The Bulgarian Berlin Wall Is Going Away Step by Step’: ‘Standby Transition’ and the Quest for ‘Europeanness’ and ‘Democracy’ in the Discourses Around the Dismantling of the Monument to the Soviet Army in Sofia . Anthropology. Journal for Sociocultural Anthropology, 11 (2), 47–79 Abstract: The article delves into the most recent debates around the dismantlement of the Monument to the Soviet Army in Sofia, initiated  in December 2023 amidst the Russian-led war in Ukraine . Drawing upon discourse analysis , ethnographic observations and in-depth interviews  with social actors engaged in this contestation, it analyses how different clusters of  arguments surrounding the memorial reflect broader social imaginaries concerning  “Europeanness”, “democracy” and the post-socialist “transition”, spurred by the  ongoing war in Ukraine. Despite the declaration that “there is nothing to ‘transit’ anymore”, 35 years after 1989 the Monument t...
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