Page 97 [97]
The Other Dead—the Image of the “Immortal” Communist Leaders in Media Propaganda
for the newspapers of political parties when they reported the death of a head of
the party. An example of this appeared in the newspaper Mir (“The World’, an
organ of the People’s Party in Bulgaria) in which in 1901, after the death of party
chairman Dr. Konstantin Stoilov, an announcement of Stoilov’s death ran each day
for 40 days (Vaseva 2008: 77-78; Mir, issue 962, May 1, 1901).
Photographic portraits of honoured deceased persons are also used as some
funeral decoration elements of Bulgarian cities on the day of the funeral of an
important figure. For example, at the funeral of the Bulgarian patriot and politi¬
cian Zahari Stoyanov in Ruse in 1889, the municipal government of the city had
erected a mourning arch (funeral triumphal arch). It was decorated with green
boughs, flowers, black drapes, and a photographic portrait of the deceased (Vaseva
2006: 112; Vaseva 2008: 109; Svoboda (‘Freedom’), issue 306, October 4, 1889).
On the funeral day of Princess Marie-Louise in 1899, many shops and restaurants
in Sofia arranged traurni katove (‘mourning corners’) in their display windows,
where usually a painted or photographic portrait of the princess, framed by black
draperies and flowers, were placed. Entomology professor Bahmetiev even framed
the royal portrait with beautiful butterflies and insects (Vaseva 2006: 111; Vaseva
2008: 108; Mir, issue 635, January 20, 1899).
In the first half of the twentieth century in Bulgarian cities the tendency to seal
and document the image of an important figure at the time of death was estab¬
lished. This visual “image of the deceased” is a way to pay tribute to the honoured
deceased, to preserve their “guise” in time, and to project them as an example for
future generations. Therefore, newspapers published detailed verbal descriptions of
the bodies of the dead in coffins and the decoration of the rooms where the wakes
were held. In addition, the features of the faces and bodies of the deceased while on
their deathbed were captured by making plaster casts and sculpting posthumous
carvings and busts and also by photographing the dead in their coffins. The body of
the assassinated prime minister of Bulgaria Dimitar Petkov was photographed on
his deathbed by courtier photographer Ivan Karastoyanov on February 27, 1907,
and on March 1, 1907, the image was displayed in a small window on the street
in front of Karastoyanov’s studio. This attracted a large number of Sofia residents
who came to see the photographs (Dnevnik [‘Daily’], issue 1663, February 27,
1907). A teacher from the Sofia School of Arts made a plaster cast of the face of
the late Bulgarian politician Dr Konstantin Stoilov, with the consent of his relatives
(Mir, issue 948, March 24, 1901). A plaster mask was also made of the Bulgar¬
ian diplomat Dimitar Rizov, deceased in Berlin, by Berlin sculptor Martin Müller
(Dnevnik, issue 5455, April 26, 1918; Mir, issue 5410, April 26, 1918). One of
the teachers in the School of Arts in Sofia made posthumous wax bas-reliefs of the
face of Princess Marie-Louise in 1899 (Mir, issue 636, January 23, 1899; Vaseva
2006: 106-107).
The urge to document in detail the funeral ceremonies of prominent person¬
alities and the assessment of the visual arts as means of creating specific historical
95