Inconveniences of Memory : The Monument to the Soviet Army and Georgi Dimitrov’s Mausoleum in Sofia after 1989

Decheva, Daniela

doi:0001-6829

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Inconveniences of Memory : The Monument to the Soviet Army and Georgi Dimitrov’s Mausoleum in Sofia after 1989 Decheva, Daniela

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Inconveniences of Memory : The Monument to the Soviet Army and Georgi Dimitrov’s Mausoleum in Sofia after 1989

Acta Poloniae Historica T. 126 (2022), Local Memory and Urban Space

Decheva, Daniela

Polska Akademia Nauk. Komitet Nauk Historycznych ; Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla

Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Instytut Historii Polskiej Akademii Nauk

Warszawa

2022

p. 89-100

collective memory ; memory policy ; communist past ; monument to the Soviet Army in Sofia ; Georgi Dimitrov’s mausoleum in Sofia

The paper discusses the transformations of memory caused by the preservation, removal or redefinition of memorials. These transformations indicate the competition between political and ideological views in Bulgarian society after 1989. Two cases are analysed: the deconstruction of Georgi Dimitrov’s already-empty mausoleum in 1999 and the Monument to the Soviet Army, still standing in Sofia. Both instances are significant indicators of power constellations, which, in the second case, also have a precise foreign policy dimension (relations with Russia). The periodically activated debates, especially concerning the Monument to the Soviet Army, indicate the absence of a coherent memory policy and general ambiguous attitudes in Bulgarian society towards the communist past.

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