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450 Anelia Kassabova the school management was trying to broaden the students contact with the outside world. Grancharov negotiated special agreements with the theatre in Pernik and the Youth Centre in Radomir to provide the necessary props and clothes for the school activities and tickets for productions at the theatres. In the summers, Grancharov and his colleagues organized summer tent camps at the Black Sea. Although the main contacts remained within the group of students and staff, there were attempts to "demolish the barriers" and to overcome stigmatizing attitudes towards the students. Collectivism—Personality The main objective of the LES system was the re-education of students. Following the ideas of Makarenko, Grancharov introduced the principles of self-government in the school. The students had to submit to specific leaders, called commanders, selected by the pedagogical Council (i.e. the school staff of teachers and educators). ‘The juveniles were divided into detachments consisting of ten to twelve persons. The detachments were expected to “take care” of their members while individuals were expected to “take care” of the respective group. The commanders attended a council, which made decisions on important matters. Some decisions were taken at a general meeting at which all the inmates could meet. Different school committees were formed—for cultural activities, for the learning process, for hygiene, for economic issues etc. “Everyone assumes an obligation according to her taste, strength and abilities, but once she assumed it she is obliged to observe it.”?! In the “struggle against theft and lies”, a so-called student cooperative corner— Kolektivna chest (‘Collective Honour’), a shop without a seller, was established.* The comrades’ court was used both as a preventive and a corrective penal instrument. A main tool in the establishment of socialist discipline, its major function was to encourage compliance with the leading social-political norms through the use of the pressure of “public opinion”. It represented vertical collectivism, based on hierarchical structures of power, that had to lead to moral and cultural conformity. For Grancharov, “the meaning of the comrades’ court was a huge thing— through it a sense of responsibility for ‘judging’, a desire for better understanding the actions and deeds of their companions, and a fear of making mistakes when condemning were cultivated. Condonation, efforts to argue, joy of forgiving others—this is what the Comrades’ court teaches.”** Through the system—a copy of an imagined socialist order of society, with strict order and discipline, and severe limits 31 DA Pernik, E 705, op. 1, ae. 2: 17-18. » DA Pernik, E 705, op. 1, ae. 1:5 gr. 5 DA Pernik, F. 705, op. 1, ae. 2: 18.
