Oldal 413 [413]
Constructions of (Non-)Belonging: Marginalized Social Groups in “Actually Existing Socialism”
the “actually existing socialism”. Analogies to GDR practices of imaging this so¬
cial group—promoting them as “cultured” and grateful citizens—are astonishingly
similar in the Soviet Union (Fig. 6).7! The politics of the Soviet Union tended to¬
wards a glorification of women with many children (Inkeles & Bauer 1961: 202)—
a practice that was honoured with awards in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria.
Here social measures were enabled in order to react to the decline in the birth rates
and to boost the birth rate among the general (ethnic Bulgarian) population. These
measures were intended to support the systematic regulation of society (Ribarski &
Velchevska 1969; Brunnbauer & Taylor 2004; Vidova 1987: 27). These processes
of “social engineering” have always been associated with a moral dimension. The
example of a mother of ten children, who was decorated with the medal of “Maika
Geroinia’ (“The Heroine Mother’)” in the year 1970, united all the typical features
of staged domestic stories like this. Herself young at heart and “youthful in ap¬
pearance”, her children were introduced as busy and excellent pupils. The oldest
daughter graduated from secondary school with honours and is now a student
of chemistry—in a way inevitably equipped with a scholarship. Furthermore, the
father was presented as an exemplary worker, who was awarded the people’s silver
medal “Georgi Dimitroff” (Fig. 7).”
“Undeserving Poor”: Between Visual Absence and Media Omnipresence
The aforementioned examples of visual cultures needed a symbolic counterpart.
But how to analyse things, which according to the state propaganda simply do
not exist? Detective series provide a very fruitful approach to gain an idea about
the “undeserving poor”. One remarkable example is the contemporary crime serial
Polizeiruf 110 (‘Police Call 110’). Thanks to its authentic presentation, the Sunday
evening show regularly attracted audience numbers that were far above average. In
the serial, images of criminal and social otherness were remarkably consistent, even
perhaps monotonous. Without exception, they were always connected with the at¬
tribution “asocial” or “dissocial”. Since 1968, the label “asocial” could even have led
to prosecution. These—all in all very rare—television images as well found their
usually only verbal, exceedingly rarely visual, expression in contemporary press ar¬
ticles. Since the end of the 1960s, when the new penal code was established, a close
21
“Sieben aus Wolgograd” (‘Seven from Volgograd’), Sowjetunion Heute, no. 7, 1962; M. Jessaulowa,
“Wie der Staat für die Familie sorgt” (“How the State Cares for Families’), Sovyetskaya Zhenshchina, no. 2,
1976; “Brigadierin, Hausfrau, Mutter von vier Kindern” (‘Brigadier, Housewife, and Mother of Four‘),
Sowjetunion Heute, no. 3, 1989; for more background information regarding the processes of staging these
families and the concept of Kulturnost, see Lorke 2016.
2 The honorary title “The Heroine Mother”, established in 1950, was given to mothers with ten and
more than ten children. Mothers with eight and nine children were awarded the medal “Maternal Glory”.
I thank Anelia Kassabova for this note.
3% D. Kolev, “Mutter von zehn Kindern” (‘Mother of Ten’), Bulgarien Heute, no. 3, 1970; S. Sarev, “Eine
reiche Familie” (‘A Rich Family’), Bulgarien Heute, no. 5, 1976.
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