Before World War II few people could made an adequate living through creative work alone, with the possible exception of members of the National Theater and Opera. The prestige of university professors, members of the Academy of Sciences, and the leading singers, artists, actors, and writers was high, but the financial rewards were hardly commensurate with their standing. Despite their prestige, Bulgarian writers and intellectuals have not enjoyed the same position of leadership and influence that has been traditional in other countries of Eastern Europe.
The communist government had promoted pride in the cultural heritage by restoring and preserving the country's medieval treasures and national revival masterpieces and by promoting traditional folk arts both in their own right and as inspiration to other forms of artistic expression. Considerable funds and efforts have been devoted to the promotion of new artistic and intellectual expression, which is seen as an important medium for the political and social education of the people. For this reason the leadership has tried to keep artistic and intellectual expression under control and to use it for its own purposes.
Despite controls, artistic and intellectual life is active. Not all creative effort becomes public, and that which does not meet the prescribed criteria of style and content is known only by its creator and a few select friends; nevertheless, it is produced. Much of what passes the censor is of doubtful artistic quality, but works of considerable merit have appeared in all forms of artistic expression. Gifted artists and writers find ways to express their talent within the confines of government regulations.
THE ARTS AND SCIENCES UNDER COMMUNISM
Since 1944 artistic and intellectual expression have been subject to the cultural policy of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BKP—see Glossary), which has followed a relatively strict adherence to the concept of Socialist Realism as developed in the Soviet Union. Under this concept art, music, and literature are required to promote communist ideology and present an idealized picture of communist society. In order to impart the ideological message, artistic and intellectual expression must be understood by the common man and, therefore, can only take the form of straightforward representative statements.
During the period of de-Stalinization in the mid-1950s, cultural controls became less restrictive, and artistic and intellectual expression burst into new creativity and life. Although this outburst never reached the proportions it did in Poland and Hungary during the same period, the regime considered it a threat and reimposed strict controls in the late 1950s. At that time the government was preparing for a great push in economic development and, to further this goal, mobilized the cultural community into service as propagandists.
Another thaw in cultural restriction occurred in the early 1960s when several factions were struggling for control of the BKP. After Todor Zhivkov assumed firm control of the party, writers and artists were again required to serve the needs of the state until the fall of Nikita Khrushchev in the Soviet Union, and an attempted coup in Bulgaria forced Zhivkov to broaden his popular support by relaxing the BKP's control of national life.
This ebb and flow of restriction on artistic and intellectual expression continues and serves as a barometer for the political and economic climate in the country. At no time since the mid-1950s did cultural policy reach the degree of repression of the Stalinist period. The leadership in Bulgaria, as did those in other Eastern European countries, learned that repression was counterproductive. Instead, it adopted a subtler method of control through the publishers, art galleries, theater companies, and other outlets for creative expression, all of which are run by the state in conformity with the guidelines on cultural policy. Because a creative artist must communicate his ideas to an audience in order to achieve fulfillment, he tends to adapt his ideas and principles to what is acceptable to the available outlets for his work. Thus, self-censorship has replaced direct government control for the most part.
From a material standpoint, the life of a creative artist in contemporary Bulgaria is far more secure than that of his counterpart in a capitalist country. Creative expression is seen as a social function; therefore, society owes the creative artist an assured livelihood. This is provided either through regular salaries from publishing houses, academies of music or art, or other agencies that employ artists or through stipends paid to creative artists who do not have a regular salary to depend on. Free or low-cost room and board are also available to creative artists and their families at special artists' colonies or retreats operated by professional unions in the creative arts and by government agencies for the promotion of the arts and sciences. Under this system, however, the artist is under constant pressure to produce in order to justify his salary or stipend.
In order to qualify for any of the material advantages, in fact, in order to function as a professional artist or scholar, an individual must be a member of the appropriate professional union. The unions are, for the most part, an arm of the BKP and another instrument for enforcing cultural policy (see ch. 9). Only the Writers' Union has demonstrated a certain degree of independence based on the recognized power of the written word. As recently as December 1972 the union again resisted integration into the Committee on Art and Culture, a supradepartmental government agency having a wide range of authority in the cultural sphere. The Writers' Union is the only professional union in the arts that has not been integrated into the committee.