Venec (Jun 2014)
A Politics of Space and the Historical Transformation of Individuals: A Case Study of Bulgaria
Abstract
This study focuses on non-discursive practices connected to the transformation of individuals in the context of Bulgaria. It constitutes an attempt at presenting a decentred history of the present through the vantage point of the architecture of the panel block. Under totalitarianism, the panel block constitutes an institutionalization of a specific politics of space in Bulgaria through which it is shown that the ‘socialist citizen’ becomes an entity that can be constructed or made. During the last years of the regime and after the transition to democracy, the functioning of power relations within the pan-el block are significantly altered, yet not completely erased. The revolution of 1989 is a symbiosis between a certain discontinuity with the past and a contradiction of the old forms of subjectivities, and on the other, a silent continuity of the everyday lives of individuals. Today, the panel structures remain, in the peripheries of the cities, still reminiscent of a time passed, yet visually signifying a new representation, a façade of the contemporary Bulgarian reality. The panel block is a ‘microcosm’ of the Bulgarian society.
