COURAGE

connecting collections

The Bread and Puppet Theater was a politically radical puppet theatre, which was founded in 1962–1963 in New York. The founder was Peter Schumann, who was a sculptor and dancer. The troupe participated in anti-war protests during the Vietnam War. It regularly toured Europe, Canada, and the United States, and it recently visited Africa, Venezuela, and Australia. Their first European tour was in April and May 1968, when they appeared in London, Berlin, Amsterdam, and France. They have received many awards for their performances.

The exact date of the foundation of the film collection is 31 March 1941 when the Bulgarian Deed Foundation was established – an institution symbol of the official newsreel, a synonym of the Bulgarian weekly newsreel from 1941 to 1948 and less known as the originator of the state film and photo archive. The structure of the foundation consisted of two departments – "film" and "publishing" – which were in charge of the films and publications of the Department of National Propaganda as well as of their distribution and selling.

The Department of national Propaganda and the Bulgarian Deed Foundation preserved the earliest film production which today is still kept at the Bulgarian National Film Archive: 165 newsreels from the period before 9 September 1944 and more than 200 newsreels from the period between 9 September 1944 and 1948 when the foundation was closed down.

Although there were attempts at institutionalizing and founding a structural unit which would find and collect Bulgarian films (Law of film culture of 1946) a film archive was never founded.

In 1948, a Law of cinematography was adopted by means of which the film production in People's Republic of Bulgaria was nationalized. The Bulgarian Deed Foundation was closed down and the state enterprise "Bulgarian Cinematography" became its successor. All cine-films imported in the country, as well as all films produced or in process of production in the country, became state property. The private film companies were also nationalized. For many years the newly-established National Film Museum at the Bulgarian Cinematography functioned also as an archive. From the very beginning, the post of "head of the museum" was held by Vasil Gendov, a pioneer of the Bulgarian cinema, director, script-writer and actor in the leading role in the first Bulgarian feature film "Balgaran is Gallant" (1910 or 1915). Vasil Gendov stored at the museum all the film copies from the cinema network and the nationalized film distributors, all the posters, photographs and materials about the history of the cinema in Bulgaria that he managed to find; from 1952 he did the duties of councilor of cinema history. In 1952 with a decree of the Council of Ministers the Department of cinematography was reorganized into Committee of Cinematography and Home of Cinema was founded which took on the artistic responsibilities of the Union of Filmmakers. An enrichment of the museum of cinematography by creating an office of theory and history of cinema was envisaged; there was also a plan of founding a national film archive on history of cinematography with strongly exhibited ideological and political functions – the films "showing the main stages of the development of cinematographic art" should be imported from USSR and Czechoslovakia.

At the same time, professional artistic associations such as the Union of the Filmmakers of 1947 and the Home of Filmmakers exerted efforts to preserve the film documents. That essentially decentralized model of preservation of valuable film records was changed in the late 1950s with the foundation in 1958 of the National Film Archive of History of Cinematography at the Department of Cinematography (1958) which was moved the following year to the structure of the Research Institute of Cinematography and Radio (1959). After a number of attempts at differentiation, in 1963 the Bulgarian National Film Archive (BNFA) began to function as an independent institution maintained by the state budget. According to the decrees of the 1960s, the function of BNFA was "to collect, restore and preserve the films and the entire non-film national archival wealth related to cinema, to process and use for distribution cinematographic information and culture". From the very beginning, the film archive functioned adequately and was internationally recognized – in 1959 it became a regular member of FIAF (International Federation of Film Archives). Methodically the activity of BNFA was managed by the Archives State Agency (the former General Direction of Archives at the Council of Ministers). As a state institution, the National Film Archive did not have the chance to pursue independent policy regarding problems related to the distribution of cinematographic information. The socialist epoch was a period of centralized control and financing, of complete uniform management of all spheres of culture. Despite all the vicissitudes and problems, however, BNFA performed its main tasks – to preserve and transmit the national film and documentary wealth of Bulgaria. Today, BNFA is a state cultural institute of national significance. By the virtue of the Law for the obligatory deposit of printed and other works BNFA preserves the entire film fund since the introduction of cinema in Bulgaria. Save the collection of Bulgarian and foreign films, BNFA has an abundant cinema library containing documents, publications, files of films with records of the discussions of the Artistic Councils, scripts, production plans, edit lists, posters, photographs etc. The number of titles preserved exceeds 15 thousand – Bulgarian feature films, documentaries, popular science films, animation films, newsreels and copies of foreign films. They are all generally accessible and systematized in professional books of references. This allows each film work to be viewed as a "piece of history" (Alpers 2003), to reconstruct the context of its creation (idea, order, financing, functions), to study the reception of the particular film.

Today, BNFA pursues a broadly open policy regarding the filmmakers, the specialists of a wide range of sciences, students and pupils and the general public. Its funds are intensely used for scientific and research work, there are educational programmes engaging also the public. This leads to multiple points of view and well-grounded debates.

The State Security (Darzhavna sigurnost, DS) of the People's Republic of Bulgaria was established in 1947, growing out of the Department of State Security, which had been established in 1925. 

From its very beginning, it took its orders from the Politburo of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP). It was modeled on the Soviet KGB, with whom it closely worked together. The State Security was a separate body in the structure of the Ministry of Interior. Thе institutional system initially underwent frequent reorganizations before it reached its final (up to 1989) form in 1962. In 1963 the State Security was removed from the Ministry of Interior to the Council of Ministers and renamed in Committee for State Security

In the 1960s, the State Security consisted of 7 directorates, for: foreign intelligence; counter-intelligence; military counter-intelligence; surveillance; government security and protection; political police (6th Directorate); and information work (7th Directorate). The 6th and 7th directorate were most notorious, implementing repressive measures against political opponents. A special service was directed to work against critical emigres, including the murder of dissidents abroad, such as the famous writer Georgi Markov, who was assassinated in London in 1978.

The State Security was the main instrument of repression as well as observation of so-called "hostile activities" of people and groups deemed (potentially) illoyal by the communist regime. After Stalin's death, the party decided that the State Security should not be used for inner-party struggles. The State Security played a major role in all the examples of mass repression in communist Bulgaria, such as against members of the former opposition in the late 1940s or against the Turkish minority in the 1980s.

The legacy of the State Security has been one of the most serious problems for the democratization process in Bulgaria after 1989. Some structures of the State Security survived under different names and until the disclosure law of 2006, its documents remained inaccessible to the public. However, knowledge about them was frequently used to tarnish the image of political opponents. In 2007 the "Commission for the disclosure of documents and announcing affiliation of Bulgarian citizens with the State Security and the Intelligence Services of the Bulgarian National Army (CRDOPBGDSRSBNA)", commonly known as "Commission on Dossiers", was established. It grants access to the archvies of the former State Security and the army's Intelligence Service and preserves these documents.

A detailed description of the State Security is provided in Bulgarian by Wikipedia (https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Държавна_сигурност), with many further references.

Further reading:

Държавна сигурност и краят на тоталитаризма. Документален сборник. Съст. Мария Дерменджиева, Момчил Методиев, София: КРДОПБГДСРСБНА, 2011 [The State Security and the End of Totalitarianism. Documents collection. Eds. Maria Dermendzhieva, Momchil Metodiev. Sofia: CRDOPBGDSRSBNA, 2011].

Държавна сигурност – политическа полиция. Документален сборник. Съст. Исмаилов, Орхан, Христо Христов, Момчил Методиев. София: КРДОПБГДСРСБНА, 2011 [State Security – Political Police. Collection of Records. Eds. Orhan Ismailov, Hristo Hristov, Momchil Metodiev. Sofia: CRDOPBGDSRSBNA, 2011].

Методиев, Момчил: Машина за легитимност. Ролята на Държавна сигурност в комунистическата държава. София: Институт за изследване на близкото минало, Сиела, 2012 [Metodiev, Momchil: The Legitimacy Machine. The Role of the State Security in the Communist State. Sofia: Institute for the Study of the Recent Past & SIELA, 2008].

Христов, Христо: Държавна сигурност срещу българската емиграция. София: ИК „Иван Вазов“, 2000 [Hristov, Hristo: The State Security against the Bulgarian Emigration. Sofia: IK „Ivan Vazov“, 2000].