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Georgeta Nazarska
‘The image of the Orthodox Other was complemented by cartoons that showed
religious feasts as places of drunkenness and carousing. Rural churches were de¬
picted as desecrated and closed and those in the cities, as crumbling or converted
into hotels and exhibition halls (Fig. 4). Special attention was given to nonbeliev¬
ers, children, and young people, who drank alcohol, ridiculed the clergy, and were
interested only in fashion (Figs 5 and 6).
At the end of the 1960s religious personages were sometimes subjected to
another propaganda image—that of “ordinary men” who prevented the creation
of a strong socialist society. This is why the January church feasts'® were regularly
depicted on the pages of newspapers as an obstacle to the implementation of annual
plans. The saints (St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, St. Athanasius, and St. Elias) were
typically described as drunks, but the angels as workers in the “factory of the Lord”.
Similarly some cartoons of the national saints (St. Cyril and St. Methodius and
St. Kliment of Ohrid) appeared completely detached from the religious context
and presented a counterpoint to the conformist and consumer behavior of modern
Bulgarians at the time.
The image of religious people was described as multifaceted. On the one hand,
older women and peasants were portrayed. Usually painted by Stoyan Venev, they
were presented as an outnumbered community, highly susceptible to retrograde
ideas of the rural parish priests. A suggestion of backwardness and ignorance beck¬
oned in their grotesque and ridicule images (Fig. 7). On the other hand, the urban
religious people, consisting of “still alive bourgeoisie”, “scum of the country capi¬
talist society” (Fig. 8), and so called zozas and swings (young people susceptible to
“harmful Western influence”), were presented in their typical attire and appearance
(makeup, hats, jewelry, and crosses) (Fig. 9) (cf: Taylor 2006; see also Angelov, this
volume). Finally, the image of foreigners appeared in the 1960s, and those were
depicted looking at the icons in their appearance considered as “shameful” by the
communists (long hair of men, short skirts for women, sunglasses, etc.) (Fig. 10).
The Catholic Others were presented either by using the image of the Pope
as a supporter of capitalism and anti-Communism (Fig. 11) or by depicting the
Catholic clergy. They were described, like the Orthodox, as greedy, rich, lustful,
and “parasitic”, living off their followers (Fig. 12). Bulgarian artists did not have
a finished iconographic model for the image of the Catholic clergy, because this
topic was very rarely treated prior to 1944. However, they used the established
negative stereotypes about Catholics as “non-Bulgarians” and “traitors”. These
stereotypes were strengthened in the second half of the twentieth century by
Bulgarian fiction and cinema."
5 Tn January are the feasts of Eastern Church Fathers (St. Basil, St. Athanasius, St. Gregory of Nazianzus
and John Chrysostom) and of St. John the Baptist, St. Antony, and St. Euthymious. They are traditionally
celebrated by people as their name patrons.
" In 1945, Dimitar Dimov published his novel Osadeni dushi (‘Doomed Souls’), which strongly criti¬
cized the Catholic Church in Spain. In 1975 it was filmed by Valo Radev.