History of Sofia, Bulgaria

"The mausolea of communist leaders, a major component of Stalinist symbolic politics, are still shrouded in mystery. Some are destroyed, like Dimitrov’s in Sofia, Gottwald’s in Prague and Neto’s in Luanda. The Lenin mausoleum in Moscow is basically defunct. Yet the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum in Hanoi, Mao’s in Beijing and the Kumsusan mausoleum complex of the Kim dynasty in Pyongyang keep fulfilling their task of a powerful symbol of a different political, social and economic order, with the embalmed cadavers of the founding fathers embodying the supposed eternal duration of that order and thereby perpetuating its legitimacy.
While the destroyed and defunct mausolea continue to be a subject of rumours and fables widely circulating among citizens of the respective countries, and globally among journalists and some scholars, very little is currently known about what actually transpired in a communist mausoleum.
This talk will offer first an overview of the cultural background and ideological reasons for the origin of communist mausolea in general. Second, it will demonstrate the details of the Soviet embalming method and the symbolic meaning of displaying the leader’s body, based on archival documents relating to the mausoleum of Bulgarian leader Georgi Dimitrov (on display 1949–1990) and Czechoslovak president Klement Gottwald (on display 1953–1962). The recently declassified archives of these mausolea currently represent the only freely accessible documentation of its kind. The formerly top secret material to be presented in this talk was never seen before by anybody else than the embalmers.
The talk will conclude with a discussion of the relationship of the embalmers to the practice of preserving dead bodies in the past. It will be shown that the Soviet, and to a lesser extent also the Bulgarian, specialists were fully aware that their preservation work in a monumental tomb constituted a continuation of a tradition inherited from antiquity, and they did not hesitate to publicly acknowledge that, at the same time highlighting the fundamental differences between the context and method of ancient and modern body preservation. They were (and still are) proud of their work while the attitude of particularly the Soviet population to the mausoleum project certainly was not negative. The attitude of the Czech specialists, however, was marked by indifference or even shame while the mausoleum project met with condemnation among the majority of Czechoslovaks."

published in:
SOFIA – 120 YEARS AS CAPITAL OF BULGARIA. Jubilee Book.
Sofia, Ed. house of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 2001,
pp. 497-507.

see also on the website of Sofia History Museum
http://www.sofiahistorymuseum.bg/bg/images/pdf/world.pdf

RESURRECTING THE SPIRIT OF ANCIENT SERDICA
Yulii Farkov and  Dobrina Zheleva-Martins

In early 2018, following the completion of the restoration of the ancient cultural and communication complex "Serdika", The Council of Ministers granted to the Sofia Municipality its socialization and management. All scientific, cultural, educational and tourist activities are to be carried out by Sofia History Muzeum.
The goal we set out in this report is to help ensure the quality of these activities.
First of all, we briefly present a concept developed and approved in 2013, wich  includes a thematic and exhibition plan for the functional reasoning of the ancient Serdika complex.
We then perform a critical analysis of the condition of the three zones of the complex as it is today - two years after it became operational, where the positive and negative findings are specifically indicated and illustrated.
On the basis of the analysis, we have outlined the problems and proposed the necessary and recommended measures that need to be taken by the responsible institutions, including RHM-Sofia. These measures and recommendations are in line with the guidelines for the management of public archeological complexes adopted by ICOMOS in the last 2017.
It is especially necessary, in our opinion, to develop a Multi-Annual Sustainable Management Plan, as well as an Interpretative Plan, to achieve a successful socialization of the complex.
We offer our vision of the latest technologies for interpreting architectural and archaeological texts, which are currently being successfully applied at home and abroad.
Specific examples are given for introducing various multimedia and digital techniques to cultural heritage such as video projections, virtual reconstruction, visualization and animation of 3D models, projection mapping, virtual, augmented and hybrid reality, making it more accessible , more interesting, more understandable and attractive. It is shown how, thanks to the latest information technology, the monuments of culture are resurrected, how through them the history and the culture are experienced by the visitors.
Finally, we propose general recommendations addressed to RHM-Sofia about its work on conservation of archeological, architectural and artistic cultural values of Sofia.

Keywords: ancient complex "Serdika"; critical analysis; measures and recommendations; Multi-annual plan for sustainable management; Interpretive plan for successful socialization; technologies of interpretation of the architectural and archeological text; multimedia and digital exposure techniques; video projections, virtual reconstruction, visualization and animation of 3D models, projection mapping, virtual, augmented and hybrid reality;

Addressing the question of what was essentially socialist about the socialist city, this paper looks for its specificity beyond the sheer urbanist artifact – the urban layout and the architectural form – into the political economy that enacted its construction. Despite focusing on the city center of Sofia and particularly on its political core designed in the early 1950s, the analysis highlights processes of space production transcending the case study. On the one hand, it exemplifies the interactions between the various institutions in the expanded and party-dominated bureaucracy: competition over resources and administrative privileges; clashes between technocratic and party rationales; forced and failed cooperation among state agencies; discrepancies between chains of command and coordination of expertise. On the other hand, it elucidates the political compromise with the professed egalitarian model of development and the party’s commitment to improving living conditions for society at large resulting from the exorbitant investment into the monumental embellishment of the city center as a power seat. Finally, the paper emphasizes that, far from being monolithic and straightforward, the implemented model of the socialist city was shaped as much by deliberate policy-making as it was influenced by systemic deficiencies and structural impediments in the institutional landscape of state socialism.

"Little Russia" on yellow paving stones
The book is dedicated to the history of the presence of Russian emigrants in the capital of Bulgaria, their influence on the cultural and scientific life, historical routes, where they lived and worked. But the book is based not only on the history of the capital of Bulgaria, amid the presence of emigration, the book "opens a window" into the history of Russia, native places, educational institutions, military service and personal stories of people who fell in the Balkans and in Bulgaria after the Civil War. Authors prof.din Rumyana Mikhneva, prof. Dr. Kostadin Grozev (1958 - 2016), Assoc. Dr. Gana Rupcheva.

Major General Stoyan Stoyanov (1913–1997) was the most successful Bulgarian fighter pilot in history. With his Messerschmitt Bf 109 he achieved fifteen air victories against the British and American aircraft, which invaded the Bulgarian sky in 1943–1944.
Stoyanov described his memories of the Second World War in the book „We Defended You, Sofia“. Between 1972 and 2018 the book was published in five editions in Bulgarian language and one in Polish. There are significant differences in the texts of the publications, which reflect the political transformations in Bulgaria.
The basis of the six editions of the memoirs „We Defended You, Sofia“ are several drafts, which are stored in the personal funds of the author in the Central State Archives (CSA). In this article the archival documents from the archival fonds of the pilot are compared both with each other and with the different printed versions of the book.

The publication includes documents from the period 1951–1954, related to the so-called Socialist reconstruction of the Sofia city centre, initiated by the then-head of the Bulgarian Communist Party Valko Chervenkov. It is designed in the spirit of the prevailing at the time socialist realism style introduced by the Soviet Union and fits into the total process of enhanced sovietization and ideologization of the political, social and cultural life in Bulgaria.
The documents reveal the party’s and government’s decisions to implement the ambitious project and the problems related to the construction of new buildings and roads. Eventually the original plan is not implemented in its entirety as at the beginning of the de-Stalinization process in the Soviet Union the Stalinist architecture is subjected to criticism and debunked as “wrong approach”. Although the plan is not completed the buildings are finished and today continue to dominate the city centre of Sofia.

The period after the Liberation of Bulgaria
(1878) and up to the end of the 1920s is filled with events
leading to significant refugee waves of Bulgarians to the
country. This situation creates difficulties for the official
authorities. They are obliged to find a quick solution to the
refugees’ problems in regard to accommodation, provision
of arable land, education etc. Some of the refugees decided
to settle in Sofia. This text is aimed at finding the role of
some Macedonian fraternity activities in Sofia in the life of
migrants from Macedonia. In this publication I use part of
the results of ethnological research that was held this year
in several districts in Sofia. Also I attach excerpts of some
archives from Central State Archives in Sofia.

THE HISTORICAL TIME OF SOFIA'S CENTRAL SQUARE
An Abstract
Architect Dobrina Zheleva-Martins, PhD
Center for Architectural Studies
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

In his famous book The Absent Structure, Umberto Eco writes that, "semiotics posits that each produced text should be read as palimpsest"; we would say, it should be read as text on text.
The city, both as an entity and in terms of fragmented spaces - assembly compositions such as its squares and streets, provides such an opportunity. Like any historical city, Sofia, with its urban continuity dating back to 8000 years ago, is actually a "town on town".
The city's historical time has built layer upon layer of texts whose stratigraphy runs 9 meters deep in the ground. Sofia's central parts are especially indicative of the intensive semantic accumulation in time.

The study will analyze the semantic metamorphoses of the present-day Demokratsiya Square, which used to be called the city's Acropolis due to its high location in the urban topography and functions during ancient times.
The study will focus on the times of change in the political, architectural and town-planning paradigm such as: Sofia's Liberation from the Turkish Rule in 1878 and the first planning of its central parts; the first town plan developed in 1838; the planning and reconstruction practices after World War Two; the building of the Georgi Dimitrov Mausoleum in 1949; the building of the HQ of the communist party in 1952; the competitions for the reconstruction of the square after the democratic change in 1989 and its consequent renaming from The Ninth of September Square to Demokratsiya Square; the demolition of the Georgi Dimitrov Mausoleum in 1999 and the current appearance of the square.
The aim of the study is to explain in historical terms the semantization of Sofia's central parts, linking this with the city's architectural and town-planning outlook.

The objective of this paper is to illustrate the parable of the ring narrated in Act III of the play, 'Nathan the Wise' by Lessing as a valid metaphor to comprehend the spirit of this national capital. The play is developed around this parable "much in the manner of weaving and sewing a coat to suit an intricate, shiny button which he had found by chance".

This paper outlines some preliminary findings of a larger, ongoing study of the changing housing regime during Bulgaria's transition from socialism to post-socialism, with a special focus on the Bulgarian Roma minority and the city of Sofia. Starting from the current era and working my way back, I discuss some of the socialist government’s policies toward housing for people in need, and trace the legacy of these policies after the end of state socialism.

Полиграфически комбинат-София През 2015 г. списание "Християнство и култура" излиза в 10 броя и се подготвя от два редакционни екипа. Редакционният екип с главен редактор Момчил Методиев в състав В. Домусчиева, Д. Спасов, и Т. Николов подготвя шест броя и си поставя за цел да разглежда актуални и дискусионни проблеми от областта на християнството и културата. Редакционният екип с главен редактор проф. К. Янакиев в състав проф. Г. Каприев, проф. Ц. Бояджиев и Н. Трейман подготвя четири броя с академична насоченост. Списанието е свободна дискусионна територия. Не бива да се очаква, че публикуваните текстове се вписват в една единна (и единствено възможна) коректност. Материалите в списанието отразяват личните позиции на своите автори и независимо от възможните различия трябва да бъдат възприемани като покана за диалог. © "Християнство и култура", 2015 Непоръчани от редакцията ръкописи и материали не се връщат и съхраняват. Всички права са запазени! Цена 5 лева. Интернет издание с пълен архив на списанието: www.hkultura.com ISSN 1311-9761 Броят е илюстриран с произведения на Лукас Кранах Стари и Лукас Кранах Млади. съдържание година XIV/2015/брой 6 (103) Разговор 5 Спасението е събитие в Църквата-с Христос Янарас разговарят Смилен Марков и Димитрина Чернева Онтология на личността Христос Янарас Енорията Една съживена традиция. Репортаж от столичния храм "Покров Богородичен" Димитрина Чернева Успение Богородично Успение Богородично отец Петко Вълов Вътрешната страна на събитието проф. Михаил Скабаланович Европа и християнството Европа-общото, националното и ренесансът Юлия Талева Християнство и култура Служението на надеждата Дидие Декоан Изкупеният град Чарлз Уилямс In Memoriam: прот. Тома Хопко Православното християнство и американският дух прот. Тома Хопко Забравени размисли За премудростта Сава Доброплодни Съвременно богословие Божествената литургия на свети Йоан Златоустхимн и извор на любовта отец проф. Стефан Коперек Християнство и история Плановете за разрушаване на църквата "Св. Неделя" и джамията "Баня баши" през 50-те години на ХХ в. Живко Лефтеров Нови книги

The article review two pierced silver coins from 16th century - 3 groschen of Stephen Bathory(1576-1586) for Lithuania struck in 1580(very rare type!) and 3 groschen of Stephen Bathory(1576-1586) for Riga, struck in 1583 - and the both from Sofia(Bulgaria).The coins are from a single finds. Kept in private collection.

В болгарской истории период от освобождения страны в 1878 г. и до так называемых «войн за национальное объединение» 1912–1918 гг. является периодом поступательного развития, нацеленного на вхождение в Европу. Одним из признаков «модерного» европейского государства должна была стать столица, демонстрирующая, что молодое княжествоцарство разделяет ценности европейской культуры. В статье на основании русских травелогов того времени прослеживается, какое наполнение имело представление о городе. В описаниях доминировала дихотомия «европейский / азиатский (турецкий)», равнозначная противопоставлению «светлый мир будущего / темный мир прошлого». Среди главных признаков европейского города начала ХХ в. выделялись три: широкие и чистые улицы, высокие каменные дома, применение достижений технического прогресса. В то же время София только двигалась к этому идеалу, и преобразования охватили не весь город. Но скорость данного движения была столь велика, что поражала русских очевидцев и в большинстве случаев заслоняла для них недостатки городской среды и сохранявшие ориентальный облик окраины. Сами же болгары гордились новым обликом Софии, несмотря на то, что предмет этой гордости имел показной, витринный характер. На основании представленного материала делается вывод, что часть европейских ценностей, связанных с городом, болгарами понималась, но не стала одной из основ их собственной системы  ценностей.

The dissertation explores the changing political ideal of the socialist city as it was articulated in the socialist reconstruction of Sofiaits blueprint and plans as well as their incomplete realizationsthroughout the Cold War era. Looking for the essence of the socialist city, the research focuses on the city center of the capital, which was planned and designed to showcase the ideology embraced by the regime. Therefore, the center of Sofia is studied first and foremost as a space of visualization of power and, accordingly, the urban plans and architectural projects for its arrangement are treated as expert solutions of a political task rather than as autonomous creative ideas.

Църквата „Св. Богородица Живоносен източник” в
квартал Подуяне на град София представлява
триконхалнен куполен храм с многостенна апсида
от изток и притвор от запад. Иконостасът е
изработен през 1883 г. и изписан от Никола
Доспевски и Евгени поп Кузманов. Първоначално
храмът е изписан през 1888 г., вторият етап е от
1933 г., а последният е от 1989-2002 г. Най-ранните
стенописи са дело на Евгени поп Кузманов от
Галичник, което се доказва при сравнение с други
негови подписани произведения.

Český podíl na procesu modernizace jihovýchodní Evropy (Czech Contribution to the Process of Modernization in Southeastern Europe).

The chapter, part of a collective monograph dedicated to multiple transformations and modernization of Czech society in the 19th century (2 volumes), focuses on various contributions of the Czechs and other inhabitants of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown to the process of modernization in Southeastern Europe. It focuses on the lands belonging to the Habsburg monarchy (e. g. Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnia...) as well as the newly independent Balkan national states (especially Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro).   

REFERENCE: František Šístek, "Český podíl na procesu modernizace jihovýchodní Evropy," In: Milan Hlavačka a kol., České země v 19. století. Proměny společnosti v moderní době, II. díl, Praha: Historický ústav 2014, pp. 355-372.

The book analyzes various periods of the 8,000-year biography of the Bulgarian capital city. It is the product of a holistic approach with interdisciplinary analyses from various perspectives aimed at producing a stereo shot of the historical evolution of the city.
The studies are of interest both to the professionals who study Sofia and who are offered a chance to see aspects of it that would be unusual to the specialist’ eye, and to a broader readership interested in the cultural history of Sofia in its entirety, as an organism which has evolved from a pre-historic settlement to a modern and populous European city.
The book is richly illustrated and the chronological arrangement of the figures offers a visual context in its own right – a kind of a visual history of the city.

„Битката за София” е част от военните и дипломатически усилия на българската държава да задържи своята територия и население извън обхвата на реалните бойни действия по време на Втората световна война. Тя продължава от октомври 1943 г. до сепетмеври 1944 г. и е символичен и достоен отговор на опита на западните съюзници от Антихитлеристката коалиция да принудят Царство България да капитулира чрез спорни откъм оперативно-тактическа, политическа, а и морална целесъобразност въздушни удари по предимно цивилни обекти в цялата страна.

След войната София никога не възстановява своя някогашен «виенски» блясък. До края на 40-те години, през 50-те, а и по-късно се строи хаотично, в различни архитектурни стилове в зависимост от честите промени в политическата конюнктура. Възстановяването на столичния град преминава през отхвърлянето на няколко архитектурни проекта, като концепцията за това как трябва да изглежда българската столица се оказва изцяло подвластна на външнополитическия фактор, свързан с налагането на „съветския модел” в следвоенното градоустройство. Представителният облик на София се променя завинаги, като в съвременният архитектурен вид на много места в централната градска част и до днес може да се разпознае белегът на отминалата световна война.

The study was published:

Zheleva-Martins, Dobrina, “Sofia in the contecst of Balkan cultural corridors”, In: “The Dialogwith the Oder: Balkan Dimentions of European Identity”, “St.Kliment Ohridski” University Press,Sofia, 2011, pp 74-89
Желева-Мартинс, Д. «София в контекста на балканските културни коридори» -В: «Диалогът с другия: Балкански измерения на европейската идентичност»- съст. науч. редактор М. Златева, София, Университетско издателство „Св. Климент Охридски” , 1912г., с.75-89

В статията преглеждам и анализирам историческите и културните фактори, които имат значение за обособяването на днешния столичен квартал " Горна баня " като един от центровете за почивка и лечение в близост до София. Проучвам въздействието върху местното население на подобрената инфраструктура и развитието на търговските, културните и политическите отношения със столичния град. Също така проследявам модернизирането на поминъка и ежедневието на жителите на селището. Основната цел е да изследвам оформянето на санитарно-курортното дело в Горна баня през посочения период в перспективата на етнологията. С помощта на различни документи и записани спомени правя съпоставка между горнобанския случай и други центрове в страната от същия тип.

In this paper the history of the Court House in Sofia is followed through series of interventions, reconstructions, restorations in the interior spaces of the building. Its architecture is connected with the work of many Bulgarian architects: Nikola Lazarov, Pencho Koychev, Peter Zagorski, Nikola Nikolov, Liubomir Semerdziev. It traces a period of over 100 years from the initial architectural competitions through its construction, finishing works and decoration, changes of function to restoration and conservation. The comparative analysis between the design stages, number of architects in team, duration of design, opens opportunity for discussion on the development of Bulgarian architectural practice through the case study of the Court House in Sofia