Oldal 413 [413]
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Constructions of (Non-)Belonging: Marginalized Social Groups in “Actually Existing Socialism” the “actually existing socialism”. Analogies to GDR practices of imaging this social 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 towards 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 appearance”, 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 attribution “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 articles. 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. 411
