Oldal 444 [444]
OCR
442 Anelia Kassabova the scenario, Kondov had been sentenced as a teenager to spend time in the "Home of Humanity”,’ where “children were bound and beaten with whips” (Ibid.: 53). In his character, the clear opposition “before the socialist revolution’ —“now, under the new progressive government” was embodied. The clashing attitudes of the director Kondov and the educator Kirilov regarding the treatment of the juveniles and the educational methods were revealed through a series of dramatic situations (fire in the school and police investigation; escape of Ana and another schoolgirl; theft of chocolates from the organized by the students “Collective Honour” shop, which operated without a seller; voluntary return of the runaways and “comrades court”? to adjudicate the theft). In the battle between Kondov and Kirilov, Kirilov achieved temporary superiority. Kondov was removed from the post of director. But in defense of him, the schoolgirls escaped collectively from the school and went to the Ministry of Education in Sofia to support their director. Kondov was granted relief by the authorities—prosecutor and militia—and by the Ministry of Education. At the end, the Good triumphed: Kondov continued his mission as director and realized his dream—breaking the fence of the school. Ana found the good way in life and remained in the school. The nickname of Ana “The She-Wolf” bears the main idea of coming to the school with the identity of a “lone wolf”—drinking, smoking, and rule breaking—at the end Ana becomes a good member of the students’ collective. From today’s perspective, the scenario leaves the impression of meeting the requirements of “socialist realism”, presenting the desired as that which actually exists, with a simple morality—good vs. evil characters—and glorifying the communist values of collectivism. One could expect that the critiques of the artistic council had ideological reasons. Despite the optimistic flavour, the script turned its attention to contemporary juvenile delinquency and the problems with the structure and life of a socialist correctional boarding school. This topic was a contradictory and delicate one, because the Bulgarian Communist Party postulated that crimes and social problems would be eradicated in the new socialist society. Especially, problems in the state socialist institutions for children and youth and the use of violence and humiliating behavior, which in the 1960s could not be explained as “old remnants from capitalism” (presented as having been caused by the previous > The first society for the protection and correction of juvenile offenders in Bulgaria was founded in y P J 8 1906 by a lawyer in Plovdiv with the aim to protect juvenile offenders by separating them from adult offenders. The first reform institution, Dom na choveshtinata (Home of Humanity’), was founded in 1924 as a preventive institution for children with “criminal predispositions’. ° The so-called “public” or “comrades courts” were established in Bulgaria and in the other socialist states in the late 1950s and 1960s, following the Soviet policy (Knuesli 1978). These courts, although they differ in meaning, organization competencies and procedural prescriptions for each socialist country still had the same goals: to provide statutory justice to sanction deviant behavior and to pursue educational impact on the guilty defendants. On the comrades courts in Bulgaria see Brunnbauer 2007; Pimpireva 2003; Pashova 2014.
