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Visualizations of “Hooligans”. A Bulgarian Film of the 1960s
school inspectors, etc.) and the personal archive of the first and long-term director
of the school, Metodi Grancharov (1928-2003), which includes personal docu¬
ments, correspondence with students, photographs, and his retrospective autobi¬
ography, written in 1991. The image built on these sources remains one sided;
nevertheless the top-down perspective allows insight into the practices of the LES.
Both Metodi and his wife Nevena Grancharova (1930-2016) lived their child¬
hood, adolescence, and early adulthood in a period of political turmoil and in poor
living conditions, both working as teachers at village schools. The Grancharov fam¬
ily were attracted by revolutionary ideas and strongly supported the new regime. At
the end of the 1940s, Metodi became a member of Obsht studentski naroden sayuz
(‘Common People’s Student Union’) and in 1954 entered the Bulgarian Com¬
munist Party. Quite probably such membership in the party was a precondition
for being appointed to the teaching post of director, for in the same year (1954)
Metodi Grancharov was nominated director of the junior high school in the village
of Kalotintsi, Pernik region, and he held this position until 1961. In 1961 he was
asked by the Bulgarian authorities to become director of the new institution for
homeless and delinquent youth. He accepted the position and was transferred as
director to the boarding school in Vranya stena. Nevena started working as an edu¬
cator at the same school. Both worked at the school until 1977 (Grancharova &
Dencheva 2003).
The LES was located in a storehouse of a trudovo-kooperativno zemedelsko sto¬
panstvo (‘agricultural co-operative farm’, TKZS) with enough outdoor space. How¬
ever, the building was old and dilapidated. “The yard was buried in weeds and
mud, scattered trees, a broken winnower, piles of manure and stones. ... In the
bedrooms [with 23-24 beds, also used at the beginning as classrooms] there are
bare walls and half-covered beds. In the refectory there are large tables and wooden
benches like in old barracks.””°
Together with the first few teachers and educators, the Grancharovi made ef
forts to restore the building. However, poor financial resources limited what could
be accomplished. After a few weeks, the first juveniles aged 11 to 18 arrived. Over
the years the number of students fluctuated between 60 and 150 per school year.
‘The girls were sent with dossiers from the court or the local commissions for com¬
bating the antisocial acts of minors and adolescents—crimes (theft), vagrancy,
abuse of alcohol and other substances. Quite often “immoral acts”, such as “in
friendly relations with coincidentally met youth and men” or “spend[ing] time in
21 and need of care and
restaurants with dubious companions and debauchery”,
protection were reasons to deprive the girls of liberty in the correctional school.
Data for the social background of the girls for the first period 1961-1969 are not
preserved. Information provided the general data on youth delinquency from the
2% DA Pernik, F. 1017, op. 1, ae. 1: 12.
21 Ibid.: 13.
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