‘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
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 to the Soviet Army came to be seen by liberal anti-communist activists as the “Bulgarian Berlin Wall” – an imaginary wall, an obstacle to the post-socialist transition, the destruction of which would open the way for the European unification and the desired “normality”. To try to scrutinise this perceived state of being “stuck” in the “post-” the article introduces the term “standby transition” – a teleological mindset, characterised by the perception of the transition as yet to be concluded, and by the simultaneous anticipation for a better future, often linked with the imagined “West” and the state of being truly “European”. This progress-based narrative, however, is challenged by the diverse voices of the monument’s defenders – from the elderly activists’ critique of the post-socialist transition as a dismantling of a valued path to the far-right groups’ unexpected instrumentalisation of the anti-fascist discourse, as well as younger generations’ emerging voices that question the binary frames of the “standby” imagination. In this sense, by looking at emic nuances of notions like “transition”, “democracy”, and “communism” widely used by my interlocutors, the paper outlines some of the potential usefulness of advocating for the spatial and temporal relevance of the term “post-socialism” in contemporary anthropological inquiry.
Keywords: post-socialism, standby transition, democracy, Europeanness, anti-communism, Monument to the Soviet Army in Sofia
Berlin Wall”: Contesting the Past, Thinking the “Post-”, Imagining the Future through the Space
of the Monument to the Soviet Army in Sofia” (Koleva 2024) defended in 2024 in the Department
of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the Central European University. The research was supervised by Prof. Judit Bodnar and Prof. Claudio Sopranzetti.
Figure 1. The dismantlement of the Monument to the Soviet Army in Sofia.
Photo: Roberta Koleva
“A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of communism.”
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,
“Manifesto of the Communist Party” (2016 [1848])
“Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes.”
Estragon, “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett (1954)
Introduction
“The Bulgarian Berlin Wall is going away step by step. There is no longer a Soviet submachine gun sticking out over the heads of the people of Sofia, and soon, the servile, vassal mentality that the communist regime instilled in Bulgarians will also vanish, along with the ever-smaller figures of the subordinate people in the background.” (Genov 2023)
These words might easily be mistaken for a description of the events that unfolded during the turbulent period following November 10, 1989. Yet, they were penned in late 2023 by the popular Bulgarian blogger Asen Genov in reference to the developments occurring in Sofia’s Knyazheska Garden 1 , when a crane menacingly hung over the Monument to the Soviet Army2 .
Although like other such memorials throughout Europe, this site was built to commemorate the Soviet Army’s role as a liberator from fascism during World War II, the growing anti-communist sentiments in post-socialist Bulgaria instigated a substantial transformation of the “brotherly help” narrative that characterised such monuments (see Vukov 2006). In official historiography, with the emergence of a new generation of anti-communist scholars, the role of the Soviet Army in the victory over fascism was strongly downplayed, with claims that there was no such a regime in Bulgaria (e.g. Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 2023). Similar memorial complexes throughout the whole country came to be seen as embodiments of “adulation to the enslaver, fanaticism, and oppression” (Vek 21 1993, as cited in Vukov 2006: 283).
However, while the Monument to the Soviet Army in Sofia had been a focal point of contention since the socio-economic transformations of 1989, it was only in 2023, amid the external shock of the war in Ukraine, that the official decision to dismantle it became politically feasible. As in other countries in Europe3 , in Bulgaria, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 prompted new waves of rage against the Soviet heritage in public spaces, due to the direct associations between Russia and the Soviet Union. The Russian aggression, discursively linked to the Soviet Army’s arrival in Bulgaria on 9 September 1944, allowed the past to be mobilised in present-day geopolitical debates, reframing the anti-communist arguments through a refined anti-imperial logic. These events were instrumentalised in reinforcing the discourse about the “Russian Occupation” of Bulgaria at the end of World War II, marking a peak in the post-1989 disturbance of the “brotherly help” discourse. This, however, reignited not only discussions about Bulgaria’s diplomatic ties with Russia, and its geopolitical alignment but also awakened the old 1990s discussions about the country’s “civilisational” choices and the enduring “zombie socialism” (Chelcea and Druţa 2016) rhetoric in the Bulgarian political scene.
After a series of resolutions effectively paving the way for the Sofia District Administration to proceed with the Monument to the Soviet Army’s removal 4 , by late December, the sculptures on the top were taken down, with no official plans for the remaining compositions of the memorial complex and the space around it. Surrounded by metal scaffoldings, the 27-meter-long plinth, once holding the Soviet Soldier was left sticking out empty – both a reminder of the contested past and a stage for new imaginaries about the possible futures5 .
Although earlier research (Dimitrova 2016) has demonstrated that over the years the memorial had evolved into an anti-monumental and apolitical space, in this article I contrastingly illustrate how especially in the past two years it has been instrumentalised as a medium for political imagination, becoming a main stage for Bulgaria’s continuing quest for “Europeanness” and “democracy”, spurred by the ongoing war in Ukraine. Mirroring the “transition” discourse of the 1990s, in one of the many narratives produced in this context, the Monument to the Soviet Army came to be seen as an imaginary “wall”, holding back Bulgaria from pursuing its “democratic” path and “European” unification. Thus, despite the neoliberal trajectories that unfolded across the ex-Eastern Bloc (Bohle and Greskovits 2012), as scholars have shown, anti-communism remains deeply embedded in the region’s collective consciousness (Chelcea and Druţa 2016, Kofti 2016, Gallinat 2022a). More than three decades after the fall of the actual Berlin Wall, yet another “wall” seemed to require dismantling.
Why were people in Bulgaria still talking about a “transition” and “communism”, when social scientists had long ago declared that “there is nothing to transit any more” (Horvat and Štiks 2012, Chelcea and Druţa 2016: 538)? How are emic understandings of such notions implemented in the political scene and by local com4 At the beginning of August 2023, Bulgaria’s pro-European government, which assumed office in June, officially changed the status of the memorial complex from public state property to private state property. This move was seen as legally facilitating the dismantlement process (The Sofia Globe 2023). The decision was proposed by the governor of Sofia District, Vyara Todeva, appointed to the post a few weeks after the government took office.
5 As of November 2024, the monument continues to be only partially dismantled, and the whole memorial complex is surrounded by sheet metal scaffolding.51
munities? Is the dismantling of the Monument to the Soviet Amy in this imagination going to be the end of “post-socialism”? And more importantly – what comes next?
Building on a body of recent theoretical discussions demonstrating the ongoing relevance of the term “post-socialism” (Kaneff 2022, Ringel 2022, Gallinat 2022a), this paper outlines some of the potential usefulness of the concept in contemporary anthropological inquiry, highlighting its particular utilisations in Bulgaria. Despite scepticism in social science about the term’s application today, the article illustrates that it remains potent in public discourse in the country, as people continue to use the temporal distinction between “before” and “after” to make sense of time. By following different groups engaged in the debates surrounding the Monument to the Soviet Army in Sofia – both defenders and activists advocating for its removal – I highlight the emic nuances of terms like “transition”, “communism”6 , “democracy”, “fascism”, and “good life”, widely used by my interlocutors, and demonstrate how these notions are employed to mobilise various political claims. More specifically, I demonstrate how the emic metaphor of the “Bulgarian Berlin Wall” reflects a specific type of teleological thinking that I term “standby transition” – a perception of the transition as yet to be concluded, coupled with enduring anticipation of a “better” future to come, often linked to the imagined “West” and the state of being truly “European”. However, I also show how this portrayal is complicated by var6 Daniela Koleva has emphasised the need to clarify the “obvious terminological discrepancy” in the simultaneous use of the terms “communism” and “socialism” (2020: 22–24). As she notes, their interchangeable usage in the region is not uncommon and reflects various ideological distinctions, theoretical and paradigmatic preferences, and disciplinary traditions. “Communism” most broadly refers to the so-called “totalitarian” paradigm associated with the works of Hannah Arendt and was widely appropriated by dissident circles in the region. By the 1990s, the term “totalitarianism” gained popularity both in academia and in the institutional lexicon of Central and Eastern European countries, though, as Koleva observes, its adoption often reflected political stances rather than theoretical rigor (ibid: 22). On the other side “socialism” is more related to the so-called “revisionist” paradigm (ibid: 23), which shifts the focus from the political to the social sphere and emphasises everyday life, the nuanced processes of knowledge production, and the interplay between individual agency and power dynamics (often drawing on Michel de Certeau’s theory of everyday practices [1998]). In this context, while “communism” is often used by political scientists, the term “socialism” is more related to anthropological studies. Both paradigms, however, have faced critiques for selectively emphasising certain aspects of the era (Kabakchieva 2016). When it comes to the Bulgarian context, in the 1990s social scientists pioneered diverse theoretical approaches to studying the period, drawing on thinkers such as Max Weber, Ferdinand Tönnies, Marcel Mauss, Hannah Arendt, David Apter, Barrington Moore Jr., Claude Lévi-Strauss, Joseph Schumpeter, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Janos Kornai, and Ivo Možný, among others (Baeva and Kabakchieva 2014: 15–16). This plurality of perspectives has led to a range of terms used to characterise the Bulgarian society from 1944 to 1989: “totalitarianism”, “state capitalism”, “socialism” (with or without quotation marks), and “communism”. Notably, critics of the period tend to use “communism”, whereas “socialism” is more commonly used without quotation marks (ibid: 15). For further exploration of these terminological distinctions, see Kabakchieva 2010, 2016: 21–82.
As this text focuses on social imagination and knowledge production, I will primarily use “socialism”, yet I will follow source-specific or emic terminologies where appropriate to maintain fidelity to both scholarly perspectives and the local lived experiences and imaginaries.52
ious other imaginations coming from the voices of the defenders of the memorial, for whom the “transition” is not necessarily seen as a progress-oriented movement, or by critical voices that challenge the binary oppositions (West–East, democracy–communism) often framing these debates.
To grasp these competing imaginaries, the research uses a qualitative methodology, based on ethnographic fieldwork and discursive analysis, conducted over different periods before, during, and after the dismantling of the Monument to the Soviet Army in December 2023. The ethnographic material is grounded on observations of the space around the Monument and in-depth interviews and casual conversations with representatives of key groups engaged in the debates surrounding the memorial7 . I followed the claims of various liberal anti-communist activists like members of the Civil Initiative for the Dismantling of the Monument to the Soviet Army (CIDMSA), and the representatives of different networks protesting against the dismantling of the monument, such as the newly formed association “The Guardians of Memory”8 and the Bulgarian Anti-fascist Union. My analysis is also informed by official documents and conversations with state-affiliated actors, such as representatives from Sofia Municipality and City Council, and further talks with artists, leftist collectives, and other public figures and people engaged in the debates.
The article begins with a short historical overview of the term “post-socialism” and more recent theoretical discussions advocating for its spatial and temporal expansion. Subsequently, I build on this scholarship to grasp how the “ghosts” of the past continue to “haunt” the present in different discursive and epistemic dimensions. First, I begin by discussing the notion of the transition as an unfinished and ongoing quest for “Europeanness” and “democracy”, obscured by a perceived impossibility of breaking with the “anchors” of the past. Then, I continue by exploring how this narrative is challenged by the alternative imaginaries of the defenders of the monument.
1 A central city park, that used to be a royal garden before 1944. Its name can be translated as “Prince’s Garden”.
2 For a complete view of the monument before its dismantling, refer to Figure 7 (p. 64) and Figure 10 (p. 70).
3 In 2022 Soviet statues in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, that were not dismantled in previous waves of de-communisation of public space, had similar fates as the monument in Sofia (Asharq Al-Awsat 2022).
Read the whole article here.
Roberta Koleva
Central European University Alumna, Independent researcher
e-mail: bettykoleva1@gmail.com
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