Suchergebnisse

In October 2012 a conference took place at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski that was dedicated to Lyudmila Zhivkova, the daughter of Todor Zhivkov and chairperson of the Bulgarian Committee of Culture (1975-1981). This was an attempt to remember Lyudmila Zhivkova and promote a positive image in the public sphere, yet it provoked a fierce response in the media from political parties and citizens indicating that the memory of socialism is a 'hot' issue in Bulgaria.

The article explores the different meanings behind the narratives of "family," "childcare," and "child protection" in the public discourses against the National Strategy for the Child (NSC) 2019–2030 in Bulgaria. These meanings are seen as reflecting the intertwining and cumulative effects of transnational and local influences in the anti-gender movement. Using frame analysis as an approach in social movement studies, the aim is to analyse the main ideas of the NSC opponents—conservative far-right non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and citizens who joined the discussion during the public debate on the Strategy in January 2019. We differentiate between the discourses of the NGOs and the critical citizens, paying attention to the way they use the narrative of return—return to traditional family forms and child-rearing models. The conservative NGOs declared themselves to be defenders of Bulgarian children and families against the liberal policies of the European Union (EU) and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) lobbies. The citizens' discourse is directed against the child-centred philosophy of the Strategy, seen as a threat to both the children themselves and parents' rights, but rarely mentions LGBT and gendering as a danger. The discussion revealed the deep distrust of citizens and parents towards the state and its institutions, which was amplified and instrumentalized by the far-right NGOs who mobilized and organized a mass social movement against the Strategy.

The paper addresses the question of why we should continue to study state socialism. In view of the rise of China and the resurgence of economic nationalism pursued by illiberal and populist governments in East-Central Europe, questions of state-led development have become topical again. Today, few authors would subscribe to Francis Fukuyama's excessively optimistic prediction of the "end of history," when the Cold War ended with what seemed at that time to be an unqualified triumph of the West. In the formerly socialist countries, history neither ended in 1989 nor when they joined the European Union. In the following section three temporal and spatial contexts in which state socialism can make sense will be discussed, by asking: (1) what is state socialism's place in the longue durée of Eastern Europe's historical legacies; (2) how does state socialism relate to general European history; and (3) what is state socialism's place in global history - and vice versa.