Societal Approach Towards the Socialist Heritage in Bulgaria (original) (raw)
Related papers
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.
The Communist Cultural Heritage in the Social Representations of a Post-Communist Generation
European Journal of Science and Theology, 2013
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.
2019
Over recent years the importance of destination image on tourists’ decision-making process has been increasingly analysed as an important factor. However, the researches into this topic are still maturing. As noted previously, the tourism industry in the Post-Soviet countries has not been a subject of great interest from scholars. However, the uniqueness of the cultural and historical background of these countries contributes to tourism flows which are important to explore. Therefore, this dissertation examines the impact of the communist heritage on the destination image perceived by foreign consumers, focusing on two the post-communist countries – Bulgaria and Poland, which have a long history connected to communism due to Soviet occupation in the years between 1945 and 1991. Drawing on theories of tourists’ perceptions, heritage tourism, and destination image conceptualization, an empirical study was conducted using mixed methods. The semi-structured questionnaires with mixed que...
Balkanistic Forum, 2021
After the 1960s the international tourism was developed as an important economic branch of Eastern European countries and space where the economic interests, ideology, consumption, and social policies were entangled. In this study, I will undertake a historic-anthropological analysis of international tourism in Bulgaria in the time of late socialism, which is based on a case study of Borovetz, the biggest Bulgarian mountain resort during socialism. The research question addressed are: how the regime was trying to establish legitimacy through tourism – among Bulgarian citizens and internationally, which is the role of the ideological confrontation with the West in the period of the Cold War and which are the leading strategies in the management and the work culture in the branch of international tourism at that time.