Comment by Emilia Milcheva:
Ordinary fascism begins with censorship and the trampling of freedom of expression - such as the ban on theatrical performances. This was done in Bulgaria by stormtroopers with national tricolors flying, and the official authorities did not react to the barbarity in a temple of art, for which they had been warming up for weeks in the media and social networks.
Shaw and the Bulgarians
In an EU country, a crowd of nationalists stormed the largest theater and did not let over 700 people watch a play by Bernard Shaw because it insulted them as Bulgarians. The police stopped people with tickets meters from the entrance to the National Theater, blocked by foaming patriots with flags flying. Instead of doing the opposite. But for this purpose, there should have been orders adequate to the situation. And since there were none, the police were a "sanitary cordon" between the agitation of "Bulgarian heroes" and the "janissaries", "Euro-Atlantic subcultures", "genders", as the protesters shouted between "Shumi Maritsa" and the anthem.
The funny war satire "Guns and the Man", directed by the world-famous John Malkovich, was played in front of an empty hall, and the performance was streamed live on the platform of one of the major television channels - bTV, while outside the crowd was raging, singing patriotic songs, and some were throwing stones and attacking people.
After trying to talk to them, the director of the National Theater Vasil Vassilev got away with a torn shirt and punches, actor Vlado Penev was pushed, and animator Teo Ushev, also with tickets for the performance, became the subject of even greater aggression. "We were kicked, cursed, spat at, doused with various liquids, hit with flag handles", he wrote on social media about his last night in Bulgaria before leaving.
No one was arrested for the riots. And tickets for the play are sold out until the end of November.
Where are the services and the police?
If the next time books start burning in the center of Sofia, the police will certainly guard the pyres the same way they guard the arsonists of extreme nationalism during their demonstrations. With their backs to the protesters and their faces to the people waiting to enter the performance, the uniformed officers did not show any initiative to free the entrance to the National Theater and ensure a pass-through regime. They did not even try to expel the ultras or at least make those with masks take them off, nor to check which of them were adults.
No measures were taken in advance - apparently, out of fear of clashes or out of collusion. During the protests in 2013-2014 against the "Oresharski" cabinet and the election of Delyan Peevski as head of the National Security Agency, the parliament was surrounded by metal fences placed meters across it. The same was true of the protests in 2021.
According to the Law on Assemblies, Rallies and Demonstrations, local authorities, in coordination with the police, can propose changes to the initially declared location of the protest or limit the perimeter. So, responsibility for the lack of prior organization lies with both the Minister of Interior Atanas Ilkov, the Sofia Municipality and the SDVR. The excuses that the demonstration was declared as a protest for cultural heritage, but has grown into something else, do not work.
The threats of what will happen and the incitement of hatred towards Malkovich and the play he directed have been going on for months, but they escalated before the premiere. If the institutions, including DANS, are not able to foresee the outbreaks of tension and take preventive action, then there is no particular benefit from them. If they have foreseen them and have allowed the conflict to escalate, then they need to be re-founded.
On the pyre of hatred
Regardless of the fact that "The Guns and the Man" has been staged twice in Bulgaria - in 1995 by director Nikolay Polyakov at the Dramatic and Puppet Theater in Vratsa and in 2000 at the Dramatic Theater "Sava Ognyanov" in Ruse, this time they rose up against it with bayonets. The Union of Bulgarian Writers (SBP), which manages properties and a printing house, a legacy of the totalitarian regime, declared itself against the play by Nobel laureate Shaw with the same pathetic hatred with which it slandered the "Booker" prize for Georgi Gospodinov in its newspaper.
Organizations such as "Kuberovy voin" and VZRO "Vortop" organized an online petition "Out "Weapons and Man"! The patriotic foundation "Our Home is Bulgaria", founded by arch. Plamen Miryanov, one of the owners of the construction company "Artex", also joined the protest. Anti-vaccination groups, opponents of the Istanbul Convention and those that usually pour pro-Russian propaganda, also raised their voices. Former rhythmic gymnastics coach Neshka Robeva, businessman Vasil Vassilev, connected in circles to President Rumen Radev, also announced a rally in front of the National Theater against the play. His son Slavi Vassilev was an advisor to the head of state, and is now a supporter of the thesis for a presidential republic. Deputies from "Vazrazhdane" such as Tsoncho Ganev and Kosta Stoyanov were among the faces of the protest in front of the National Theater, as well as Angel Dzambazki from the VMRO.
They all declare the play to be "anti-Bulgarian" and "ridiculing the exploits of the Bulgarians during the Serbo-Bulgarian War" in 1885", which also made them look simple and unwashed.
Some of the organizers are also angry about the date chosen for the premiere, November 7. Some - because it is a holiday of the Great October Socialist Revolution, others - because it is the day of the glorious battle of Slivnitsa in the Serbo-Bulgarian War, where the Bulgarian captains won.
The only political formations that have condemned the pogrom so far are GERB, "We continue the change" (PP) and "Democratic Bulgaria" (DB). They define the attack as censorship, an attack on freedom of speech and the free creative spirit, and according to PP and "Yes, Bulgaria" it is an "active event" and "pre-organized hybrid action, the goal of which is hatred and division". None of these political forces has requested resignations in their declarations.
"If there is a state today, if there is a prime minister, president and government today, they will protect the right of Bulgarian citizens, the right of Bulgarian artists to freely express their creativity," said yesterday the director of the National Theater Vasil Vassilev, almost in tears. But the state was nowhere to be found in front of the National Theater.
Browning
Shaw's play is the reason for the second visit of the famous actor, producer and director John Malkovich to Bulgaria - after his participation in the play by Bernard-Marie Koltes "In the Solitude of the Cotton Fields", directed by Timofey Kulyabin. In front of the handful of people in the hall, Malkovich explained that he never thought that anyone could be offended by the play. "I have no right to censor, not even the protesters, my job is to direct. Strange times." "Malkovich, go home", was written on some of the posters erected by the nationalist agitators.
But the protest against the play directed by Malkovich is not the only manifestation of censorship and an attempt to suppress the voice of artists. In the summer of 2023, supporters of "Vazrazhdane" and ultras stopped screenings of the film "Blizo" in Sofia, where it was part of the Sofia Pride Film Fest program, and in Varna, and there were attempts in Plovdiv. The film tells the story of two 13-year-old boys whose friendship is the subject of homophobic mockery by their classmates.
Will the National Theater hold on and leave the play in its repertoire - or will it remove it? If it is no longer performed, it will be a capitulation and a signal that the environment in Bulgaria is starting to turn dangerously brown.
It is more effective for nationalists to attack the National Theater - that way they get into the news, but they do not notice the devastation that has engulfed the pantheon of "Mother Bulgaria". The same one, called "Shipka of the Serbo-Bulgarian War", erected in honor and memory of the glorious Bulgarian victory. A good occasion for the one hundred percent Bulgarians to prove that they are patriots. We know about neo-fascism.