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Dagnostaw Demski in cooperation with A. Kassabova, I. Sz. Kristöf, L.Laineste and K. Baraniecka-Olszewska
‘The section “Mediating Sites and Localizations: Images and Movement” directs
our attention to images of specific geographical and ideological sites. Uzlowa
discusses sent postcards, a classic instrument of communication that accompanies,
mainly, travel, as a complex visual and textual product. According to Uzlowa,
picture postcards are tempting items and should be understood as a mediator
between the well-known and less known otherness. Embodying or, at least, offering
insight into the identities of the travelers who wrote them, the postcards depict the
travelers themselves and the Others, who perhaps disappeared or had questionable
identities.
Seljamaa draws attention to the intricate relationships between cultural forms
and contents as sites of agency and collaboration in (post-)Soviet Estonia. The
author traces these contradictory goals and meanings in the visual material pub¬
lished on the occasions of the first three Soviet-era song and dance celebrations in
Estonia, held between 1947 and 1955. They are considered a tool of Sovietization.
However, as the author claims, the relationship between national/Estonian form
and socialist content was more complex than one of simple subordination.
Gadjeva presents the changing view of Bulgaria following the decision to open
the country to international tourism. She analyzes most representative photo¬
graphic albums of the 1960s advertising the seaside. As she concludes, to become
an object of desire, Bulgaria had to be depicted as seen through the eyes of foreign¬
ers and not of the Communist Party. Thus new themes of these “promotional”
images permeated the new repertoire of Bulgarian photography, transforming its
previous imagery.
From the examples cited in the volume’s final section “Media and the Creation
of Cultural Memory”, figures from the ancient past can be treated only briefly.
However, as the authors of these chapters show, the reconstruction of behavior
already belongs to the present. It is not a detailed presentation of historical figures
but rather creates “character types”, recognized only by certain actions or general
social property, that played a role in a historical event. Troeva focuses on changes
in historical research. The medieval past of Bulgaria is also under reconsideration;
the same ideological trends can be observed in the history books from the period
after WWII. Troeva presents some of the trends in the representations of Bulgarian
medieval history during the socialist period from the end of WWII until the early
1980s.
Periklieva and Markov continue this approach and present memory of King
Samuel and the Battle of Kleidion of 1014 in the region of Petrich in southwest
Bulgaria. It is a particular case study, however it enables the authors to discuss
generally the problem of the role of state policies in the construction of cultural
memory and of the use of cultural memory in various state policies in the frame¬
works of nationalism and cross-border studies.
The last chapter by Baraniecka-Olszewska concerns the contemporary period
and a different way of approaching visual reality. Baraniecka-Olszewska describes