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Anelia Kassabova
communist society. Ihe children and adolescents had to participate in productive
work seen as a key factor in their development. Generally the LES did not pro¬
vide sufficient preparation for further education at universities. The focus in labor
educational schools signified that the Other children were trained to be prepared
for manual and industrial work and to become part of the working class. Con¬
sequently, these schools were administered inexpensively. All LES were on state
budget, but additional resources were needed for meeting the most basic needs
of food, clothing, and firewood. Productive labour was combined with school
education; preparation in a strict daily regime from 06:00 to 22:00 with tight
timing in organized activities was obligatory. Each activity had to be done col¬
lectively, in supervised groups. The juveniles were divided in classes according to
age and level of literacy. The school programme in the 1960s followed polytechnic
school regulations. It followed Todor Pavlov’s educational idea that only histori¬
cal materialism was capable of revealing the true “objective” meaning of historical
development, and the current socialist reality is a necessary outcome of the his¬
tory of the Bulgarian people.'? In order to promote socialist patriotism, proletar¬
ian internationalism and Bulgarian-Soviet friendship, a class-and-party standpoint
(partiynost) had to be taken in all school subjects. Not individual but group work
predominated in the organization of the LES. Education in vertical collectivism
with a strict chain of command was the primary principle, derived from ideas of
the most influential individual at that time in Soviet space educational theory and
practice, Anton S. Makarenko.
Considered and presented in the public as “dangerous” and as “bad role models”
Bulgaria’s own Other had to be hidden from public society and be out of sight. The
correctional schools were surrounded by fences, walls, or other barriers to prevent
escape and to protect the local community. In the 1950s-1960s the trend was to
establish these institutions away from cities—in the suburbs and mostly on the
outskirts of villages (for girls there were only two LES—in the village of Vranya
stena and in the village of Podem, Pleven region. For boys—Rakitovo town; village
Godlevo, Blagoevgrad region; village Ivancha, Targovishte region; village Kereka,
Gabrovo region; village Kazichene, Sofia region; village Slavovitsa, Pleven region;
village Boychinovtsi, since 1974, a town; etc.).
The Concrete Reality
The centralized hierarchical power structure defines the important role of the per¬
sonality of the director. In order to better understand this role, one needs a thor¬
ough insight into both the social conditions under which the school functioned
and the life of its director.
Sources of information about the school are official documents (protocols of
the meetings of the pedagogical council of the LES, annual plans, reports of the
' On the ideology and philosophy of Todor Pavlov see Daskalov 2011.