Societal Approach Towards the Socialist Heritage in Bulgaria (original) (raw)
Attitudes towards communist heritage tourism in Bulgaria
Purpose: This paper aims to identify the attitudes of Bulgarians towards country's historical monuments, communist heritage, communist heritage tourism and their willingness to participate in communist heritage trips. Design/methodology/approach: The sample includes 359 respondents recruited via online survey. Mann-Whitney U-test is used to identify the differences in the respondents' attitudes towards communist heritage tourism in Bulgaria on the basis of their age, gender, frequency of visit to historical monuments, attitudes towards country's communist past, prior visit to, familiarity with and attitude towards communist monuments, and identification of communist monuments with country's heritage. Findings: Respondents who visited historical monuments more frequently, had more positive attitudes towards communist past of the country and its communist monuments, those who had visited and were very familiar with the communist monuments were more supportive towards donating money for the restoration of communist monuments and their inclusion in tourism supply. Practical implications: The paper reveals that domestic communist heritage tourism demand exists in Bulgaria and tour operators need to focus on including communist heritage in tourism supply. Social implications: Communist heritage is controversial and different social groups perceive it differently, depending on their attitudes towards communism as a political, economic and social system. Originality/value: The paper compares the attitudes towards historical and communist monuments and revealed that communist monuments received less support for inclusion in tourism supply than historical monuments, respondents were less inclined to participate in trips to them and to donate money for their restoration.
Opportunities for developing communist heritage tourism in Bulgaria
Tourism (Zagreb), 2009
Stanislav Ivanov, Th e paper analyses the possibilities to develop communist heritage tourism in Bulgaria. After a review of related literature, the paper identifi es fi ve characteristics of communist heritage tourism: ideologically overburdened type of tourism, controversial, represents a limited time period of history, represents a personality cult, concentration of resources in places related with communist history in the country (in cities and the countryside). Th e paper summarizes some of the most important resources for communist heritage tourism development in Bulgaria and the potential market segments for communist heritage tourist products. Th e key market segments are considered Bulgarians and Westerners born before 1960 as they were at least 19 years old when communism fell and had clear memories of the period. Th e fi nal section of the paper presents the structure of a proposed future museum of communism and analyses its three possible locations.
2017
After the fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of the communist/socialist regimes many Eastern Euro-pean countries sought to establish new separate, unique identities as part of the Western World and the European political and economic organizations. The old totalitarian identities, histories, and heritages have mostly been excluded from the desired and preferred representations about and of these countries and in many instances even silenced and suppressed. Tourism as major creator and mediator of knowledges and images about places, peoples, and pasts is an important factor in these processes of identity making, inclusion, and exclusion. In the case of Bulgaria, the communist/socialist heritage has been marginalized and silenced in the past 20 years as the country's new European identity has been made, established, mediated, and announced. However, in the past 5 or so years with the hardships of the transitional period still continuing and with an emerging sense of nostalgia towards the socialist/communist period, the totalitarian heritage has slowly started to become visible in the public discourse. Moreover, there has been registered desire by authoritative agents in the country to revisit that part of the Bulgarian history and include it through heritage sites in the exhibited and represented images of Bulgaria including through/in tourism. The proposed article offers an examination of these slow and contested processes of inclusion of the communist/socialist heritage and how this inclusion (or continued exclusion) is the interplay of power, identity, and tourism. These issues are examined within the context of a qualitative critical interpretive study of Bulgaria.
Cultural and Historical Sites in the North-Eastern Socio-Economic Region of Bulgaria
2013
Bulgaria, regarded as the eastern end of the European Union, coexists with other member countries in the European family. Bulgaria has explicitly and repeatedly stated and defended their belonging to this, which makes the tourist map of Europe "extends" to the East, while providing opportunities to our country for its future development. In this presentation we put the focus on cultural - cognitive dimension of Northeast Bulgaria. Being apparently a periphery, this region has features that ensure both its presence in the Bulgarian cultural space, as in Europe, particularly in historical, cultural and social terms. The cultural sites in Northeast Bulgaria, which arouse some interest to the tourist level, demonstrate the importance of the region nationally. The Northeast Bulgaria is certainly an appealing area to develop tourism. Is indistinguishable from local to national level (strongly marked by patriotism), does not enjoy priority in the media space as loaded, but has, h...
Different studies on the Romanian tourism have demonstrated that the communist cultural heritage is only accidentally included as part of different national and regional tours. The Communism was publically condemned in Romania in 2006 under a real political and civic tension concerning its cultural patrimony. Lenin"s statue is demolished in 1990, bones of the communist heroes are replaced in a mausoleum with the bones of World War II heroes, and a communist monument is downgraded from the list of Romanian historical monuments in 2004. Under these circumstances the present study is trying to see which is the attitude of a post-communist generation concerning the communist cultural heritage. Did the members of a generation born immediately after the fall of the Romanian communist regime (1989)(1990) import the negative attitude concerning the communist cultural patrimony which is still publically shared by their parents" generation? This is the basic question we are trying to answer by an empirical research.
Integrating socialist cultural heritage into the tourism offer of the municipality of Koper
PINEDA, F. D. (ur.), BREBBIA, Carlos Alberto (ur.) Sustainable tourism IV, (WIT transactions on ecology and the environment, Vol. 139). Southampton: pp. 369-380, 2010
The period of socialism has changed the society and the space of the Municipality of Koper and bequeathed the cultural heritage of the recent socialist period, which may be referred to as the relics of socialism. This cultural heritage includes spatial phenomena of the time: commercial and residential buildings, suburban settlements, individual buildings, monuments of the National Liberation War and other structures that were erected during the time of socialism. Invisible relics, called the relics of ideology (non-material cultural heritage), may be included as well. The purpose of this paper is to present the cultural heritage of socialism because it is not yet integrated into the tourism offer, as well as to form proposals for its integration.
Shared (out) Heritage in the Borderlands: Cross-Border Cooperation, Cultural Tourism and Local Development. In: Luleva, A., I. Petrova and S. Barlieva (eds.) Contested Heritage and Identities in Post-Socialist Bulgaria. Sofia: Gutenberg Publishing House, 235–258.
Istoriâ, 2024
This study presents the background of cultural tourism in Bulgaria. There are a lot of definitions of tourism, but everywhere in the leading places is mentioned the cultural heritage. Cultural tourism became a global autonomy economy branch in the 1980s. In Bulgaria, in the middle of the 1950s, a growth of restoration, preservation, and presentation work began. The number of museums increased from 70 in 1949 to 233 in 1999. The peak of museum visitors was between 1976 and 1987, but statistical data are not reliable. The transition to a democratic society and market economy was the real start of cultural tourism in Bulgaria, established on the material base, institutions, and infrastructure constructed during the studied period. The applied data shows that the percent of museum non-budget incomes increased, but the system still needs reforms and investments.
ETHNOLOGY OF TIME: COMMUNITIES AND CULTURES, 2024
According to the definition by ICOM, „A museum is a not-for-profit, permanent institution in the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage. Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums foster diversity and sus tainability. They operate and communicate ethically, professionally and with the participation of communities, offering varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing.“ (https://icom. museum/en/resources/standards-guidelines/museum-definition/) At first glance, the museums in Bulgaria, and correspondingly those in Southwestern Bulgaria, adhere to the definition provided by ICOM. They are non-profit institutions and engage in research, collection, preserva tion, interpretation, and presentation of tangible and intangible heritage. However, upon closer examination and precise analysis of their structure and operations, we would have to classify museums as serving adminis trative bodies rather than serving society. According to Article 25, para graph 3 of Regulation No. N-00-0001 of February 14, 2011, concerning f ield archaeological research, public access to archaeological documenta tion is severely limited, and comprehensive access to the full range of ar chaeological materials is practically impossible. In practice, visitors have access to minimal artifacts and information, which need to be improved to create a fundamental understanding of the respective archaeological culture, settlement, or structure. There are no annual, medium-term, or long-term plans for archaeological, ethnographic, historical, interdisci plinary, or exhibition development. There is no strategy for restoration and conservation. Practically no activity is conducted regarding intan gible cultural heritage. The closure of museums in Southwestern Bulgar ia within municipal administrations and their limited resources restricts public interest in museums and their capabilities. In order to compensate for this, as well as to be attractive to society, museums shift from presen ting culture to presenting shows. Instead of authenticity, reconstruction, a product of the subjective views of specific researchers, is exhibited. The article directs the attention of museums and their activities towards the needs and resources of society. If museums have real, not fictitious, com munication with society and scientific communities, they will achieve sustainability and a real presence in cultural life.
The heritage of socialism in Škofja Loka as an opportunity for tourism development
Academica Turistica, jun. 2014, year 7, no. 1, pp. 61-69, 2014
In recent years, the heritage of socialism has found its way into the tourist services of many eastern European cities, where it is being successfully marketed through various tourist products. Since this kind of heritage is also present in Slovenia, we believe that by developing these kinds of tourist products, together with their appropriate presentation and organization, socialist heritage tourism services could be offered by the municipalities of many Slovene towns and cities, including Škofja Loka, the subject of this paper. We have used qualitative semi-structured interviews with four selected tourism stakeholders in the region and have obtained their positions regarding the integration of socialist heritage into the tourism range of services in the municipality of Škofja Loka. We also present the heritage of socialism and proposals for new sustainable tourist products based on the relics of socialism.