Born in Shumen in 1934, Sevdalina Panayotova spent her childhood and youth in Sofia, where she graduated from the University of Sofia in Bulgarian philology in 1956. During her studies she became close to Petar Peev and Georgi Konstantinov, who in 1953 attempted to destroy the monument of Stalin in Sofia, but were arrested. Stalin's death on 5 March 1953, which coincided with the planned destruction of the monument, spared them a death sentence. They were sentenced to 20 years in prison in a forced labor camp in Belene on Persin Island. As their follower, Sevdalina was also declared an "enemy of the people", and thus was a subject of observation by State Security throughout her life.
During her student years, 1953-1956 the Sofia home of her parents, Petar and Vena Baychevi, became a center for a large circle of young people who gathered to debated, create, and argue. Another “alternative” place was the so-called "doghouse" on 23 Ivan Rilski street, where Assen Ignatov (a philosophy student, close friend of Sevdalina from Shumen, considered a leading contemporary philosopher; emigrated 1973), Konstantin Pavlov (poet), Mihail Berberov (poet), Uzuna (Dimitar Uzunski, long-time editor of the Shumenska Zarya newspaper, poet, fiction writer), Nella Dancheva (poet, long-time journalist in Shumen), Petko "the mayor", Manol "the dog", and others met and critically discussed the reality of socialism and undertook alternative political work. Together with some of her colleagues, Sevdalina participated in preparing an anti-communist rally, which was to take place on the evening of 7 November 1956, as a show of solidarity with the Hungarian revolution. However, the organizers were arrested, including Sevdalina Panayotova (then with her father’s family name, Baycheva), and the rally fell apart.
From 1959 until her death, Sevdalina Panayotova lived and taught in Chepelare (only living in Sofia during the period 1969 to 1974 with her husband Panayot Panayotov and her two daughters Teodora and Boryana). In 1972, Sevdalina Panayotova led a group of dissident intellectuals such as Rozalia Likova, a professor at the Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, Hristo Sabev (later known as Christopher Sabev), her old friends Petar Peev and Georgi Konstantinov, former students from Chepelare, then current students in Sofia such as Lika and Stefan Marev, Zlatko Kalaydzhiev, Maria Stoeva, and others. They gathered (most often) in the home of Sevdalina’s parents. Apart from political discussions, they read and discussed forbidden literature (documented in their State Security files by day, hour, and minute).
After Georgi Konstantinov, an anarchist who had laid a bomb at the Stalin statue, fled to the West in July 1973, Peter Peev and Sevdalina Panayotova were declared "anarchoterrorists" and accomplices of Georgi Konstantinov, and were accused of belonging to an illegal terrorist organization. In September 1973, Petar Peev was sent to the forced labor camp in Belene on Persin Island for three years, and in November Sevdalina was detained for 40 days at the Investigation Department of State Security at Razvigor Street No. 1 in Sofia. At that time, she was 39 years old, her elder daughter, Teodora, was 13, and her younger daughter, Boryana, 7. The rest of the group were also arrested and interrogated. In Emigrant memories, volume 1, Georgi Konstantinov, through the archives of State Security, proves that the repressive structure of State Security aimed to "collect materials" with the goal of starting a legal process against Georgi Konstantinov, Petar Peev, and Sevdalina Panayotova as organizers of an illegal movement of anarchoterrorists to overthrow communist rule. One of their "successful actions" – in the view of State Security – was the illegal emigration of Georgi Konstantinov. State Security assumed that they associated with Western counterparts. For the collection of "evidence", the State Security used numerous means: eavesdropping, threats, extortion, recruitment, violence (as evidenced by the thousands of pages stored in the State Security archives). Georgi Konstantinov himself says in his book that Peter and Sevdalina were never anarchists or terrorists, and even writes about Sevdalina's "literary circle" in a condescending manner. The investigation of the anarchoterrorists was terminated in the spring of 1974. After her release, in order to avoid exile Sevdalina returned to Chepelare, where she taught, organized a school theater, and wrote for the rest of her life. She turned speech into the main means of her opposition to the socialist regime. The word in all its forms, in writing, in everyday speech, in theater, as a means of education.
The life credo of Sevdalina Panayotova, a third-generation teacher, was that education and upbringing are key factors in the formation of one’s personality and the path to emancipation. Education in the sense of knowledge and scientific approach; analytical thinking in the sense of observance of basic moral norms, regardless of the circumstances. Therefore, developing critical thinking, i.e. questioning the "truths" imposed from the top, among friends, relatives, and above all students, was the Sevdalina Panayotova’s approach to opposition. The forms of her cultural opposition were various: organizing a literary circle, preparing theatrical performances, writing scenes and, in particular, teaching high school with an approach different from those officially accepted. As a teacher, screenwriter, and theater director, Sevdalina Panayotova created plays that were hindered by state institutions, but which have provided different generations with courage and anti-totalitarian thinking.
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Ort:
- Smoljan, Chepelare, Bulgaria 4850
- Sofia, Bulgaria
Teodora Panayotova graduated from Sofia University with Master Degree in Philology and Higher Education. She worked as a lecturer at the Institute for Foreign Students in Sofia; she participated in the informal movements of the 1980s; was co-founder of the teachers and the journalists trade union “Podkrepa”. Actively supporting the political change to democracy, since 10 November 1989, Teodora Panayotova has been working in the oppositional newspapers Reporters 7, Podkrepa and Democracy. She also became member of the the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF): a broad coalition established in December 1989 by a group of non-governmental organizations and restored parties from the period prior to the establishment of the communist regime.
Since their childhood, Teodora and her sister Boryana witnessed the activity of their mother, "who has always provoked the disapproval of the socialist power. As a teacher, screenwriter and theater director, Sevdalina Panayotova, for half of a century, created scenarios and plays that were stopped and obstructed by the institutions, but which raised generations of courage, civic position, activity and anti-communist thinking."
Teodora explains her anticommunist beliefs by the characteristics of the totalitarian regime: "To enforce and to survive, the regime systematically and purposefully destroyed the basic moral norms and transformed the amoral behavior into normality: murder, lawlessness, betrayal, slander, lying, duplicity, falsification, corruption etc. At the same time, the regime held the population subject to fear and terror, which turned paranoia into a constantly mental state, destroying trust among people. And trust is the foundation of every society."
Having beeing parent herself in non-fear and non-obedience, Teodora Panayotova maintains that "the claim that there was no resistance in Bulgaria against the communist regime, comparing it with the 1956 Hungarian uprising, the Czech 1968 revolution and the Polish resistance 1981, is not true. In the first years after 9.IX.1944 there was the so-called Goryanstvo movement. These were militarized bands who fought against the communist regime and who were killed in very cruel way. Periodically in Bulgaria there were groups and individuals who have been against the communist regime, and who therefore spend years in forced labour camps or in prisons, or have been objects of dismissal, interrogations and other repressive measures; or forced to emigrate. One such group was also around Sevdalina Panayotova, whose collection we are presenting."
Her understanding of cultural opposition Teodora Panayotova expresses as follows: "Cultural opposition is an opposition through the means of culture in the narrow sense of the word, i.e. through the forms of art (verbal and non-verbal, of written and oral speech, which includes education). During the 45 years of socialist Bulgaria there was a cultural opposition, which is less expressed in works (written, paintings, sculptures, theatrical and musical) directed openly against the totalitarian power, but more in getting out from the established interpretation of works and breaking the pattern of socialist realism."
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- Sofia, Bulgaria
Andrei Pandele (b. 27 August 1945, Bucharest) is an architect, urbanist, and photographer. He graduated from the Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism in 1968. His professional portfolio in the field of architecture and urbanism includes a number of outstanding achievements. Among these may be mentioned: a five-star hotel in the Danube Delta; a solar dwelling in Sector 2 of Bucharest; the Ambrose Paré pavilion in La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, Île-de-France; remodelling and fitting of nineteenth-century buildings on Calea Rahovei and Calea Victoriei in Bucharest; and a sixteen-level hotel on a steep (85%) slope at Băile Herculane. In 2000, he was strategy coordinator for the General Urbanistic Plan of the Romanian Capital, Bucharest.
Andrei Pandele has a prodigious photographic activity, being a member of the (Romanian) Association of Artist Photographers since 1973 and of the Fédération Internationale de l’Art Photographique since 1981, a founder member of the (Romanian) Sports Press Association in 1990, and a collaborator for Associated Press and Sygma in the same year. He has had photographs published in various foreign magazines, including Photo, Sovetskoe Foto, Fotografie, Lettres de Paris, Midi Olympique, Rugby World & Post, and in such Romanian publications as Arhitectura, Sportul, Fotografia, and the newspapers Adevărul, Cotidianul, and Evenimentul zilei. He has also had occasional university teaching activity, teaching courses on photography and architecture at the Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism. His photographs illustrated the volume Vom muri şi vom fi liberi (We will die and we will be free, 1990) by Irina Nicolau. He has published the greater part of his photographs in various albums and illustrated volumes, such as Fotografii interzise şi imagini personale (Forbidden photographs and personal images, 2007), Martorul-surpriză: Fotografii necenzurate din comunism (Surprise witness: The uncensored photographs of communism, 2008), Casa Poporului: Un sfârşit în marmură (The House of the People: An end in marble, 2009); and Bucureștiul mutilat (Mutilated Bucharest, 2018).
As a photograph, Andrei Pandele has an impressive portfolio. He has had numerous exhibitions of photographs all over the world, and some of his works have entered international private collections. Among exhibitions in Romania may be mentioned: “Fotografii interzise și imagini personale,” (Forbidden photographs and personal images) National Theatre, December 2007 to March 2008; “Amintiri din Epoca de Aur,” (Memories of the Golden Age) Cinema Studio, Bucharest, at the premiere of the film of the same name, September 2009; “Made in Romania,” Sala Dalles, October 2009; “Andrei Pandele la TIFF,” (Andrei Pandele at the Transylvania International Film Festival) Museum of Art, Cluj, May 2010; and ”Veșnicia s-a născut la sat,” (Eternity was born in the village) Museum of the Romanian Peasant, București, January 2015. He has had solo or group exhibitions in France, the Netherlands, Spain, Poland, and Israel. Articles about his photographs have appeared in numerous national and international publications. Out of all of them, Andrei Pandele considers that the article “A lost city: Photos of Bucharest's past,” published by BBC News, is the most important reference to his photographic work. Andrei Pandele keeps a blog, where a number of his photographs of everyday life during communism and of the demolitions in Bucharest in the last communist decade can be found. Address: http://www.ap-arte.ro/
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- Bucharest, Romania
His work changed during the 1990s for a number of reasons. On the local level the country was at war, on the global level a transformation was underway towards embracing new technologies. In his own words “this new environment led me to question my acquired knowledge and in relation to that and the economic crisis in Serbia, I saw the strengthening of my personal feelings and relationship toward immaterial art as my initiation, precisely through the local neo-avantgarde and avantgarde.”
He was active in the Apsolutno art collective from its inception in 1993 until 2005. The collective focused on new technologies, traditional art projects and video installations. In the second half of the 1990s, through artist residencies abroad, he acquired an insight into international events and contemporary social and cultural challenges in Europe. The political shift on 5 October 2000 – when the presidency of Slobodan Milošević was ended by mass demonstrations of Democratic Opposition of Serbia supporters – pointed to the needs and problems in art production that reacts to and yet is not rooted in the infrastructure and politics of culture, where it could interface with societal relations.
After acquiring experience abroad and learning about organizational models, in 2001, together with other members, he established New Media Center_kuda.org with a space with permanent infrastructure, where people could gather, share ideas and information and collaborate. This became the basis for new artistic production, a hub, an archive and a library. The mission of kuda.org is to organize artist-activists who challenge the use of new technologies in art and society and to create a platform for the critical analysis of technology and society.
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- Novi Sad, Serbia
Žarana Papić is remembered as one of the pioneers of Yugoslav feminism. She set high standards in theory and in activism, struggling for a more equal and fairer society.
As a trained sociologist, Žarana first encountered contemporary feminist theory at the Croatian Sociological Society conference in Portorož in 1976. In the same year, she attended the first course of Women’s Studies organized at the Inter-University Center Dubrovnik. Together with other colleagues, she organized the first international feminist conference in Eastern Europe in October 1978 in Belgrade’s Student Cultural Center (SKC). At this conference feminists from countries like England, Germany, France and Poland were invited for the first time, which also provided the opportunity for exchange with Yugoslav feminists.
The conference was titled: Drug-ca žensko pitanje, novi pristup? [Comrade woman. Women’s question- A new approach?] This conference represented a new feminist movement and theory, which was driven by hosting renowned participants from around Europe. The conference critically examined the dominant patriarchic system, and enabled the founding of a group of feminist-oriented theoreticians and activists in Yugoslavia. The conference signaled the beginning of a feminist critique of patriarchy in socialism.
Starting in 1977, Žarana Papić published articles on the subject of women’s issues. Together with Lydia Sklevicky from Zagreb, she edited the book Antropologija žene [Anthropology of Women] (1983), the first of its kind in Yugoslavia. The book inspired many young women to engage with this topic. In 1989, Žarana became an assistant in social anthropology at the Department of Sociology. She completed her doctorate degree with the thesis: “Dijalektika pola i roda - priroda i kultura u savremenoj socijalnoj antropologiji” [The dialectics of sex and gender - nature and culture in contemporary social anthropology] and earned the position of assistant professor at the same department. Žarana regularly taught social and cultural anthropology and gender studies as a special subject. In 1997 her doctorate was published under the title “Polnost i kultura: telo i znanje u savremnoj antropologiji” [Gender and Culture: Body and Knowledge in Contemporary Anthropology].
Žarana Papić belonged to the first post-war generation of Yugoslav feminists and had a huge influence on the development of younger generations.
At the time of the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, Žarana Papić belonged to the smaller number of intellectuals who rejected war, nationalism and multiethnic conflict. Žarana contributed greatly to the feminist understanding of the nature of the conflicts that broke out of the country by publishing papers clearly linking nationalism, patriarchy and war. She was one of eight women who founded the Belgrade Center for Women’s Studies in 1992 as an alternative place for women intellectual and anti-war activities. Žarana also taught anthropology and gender studies at the Center.-
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- Belgrade, Serbia