Sledva : NBU Journal of Humanities and Arts

Table of content

Managing Editor — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Table of content

Panic and Philosophy

Boyan Manchev — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

COVID-19 would have never been so â€˜effectiveâ€™ without its capacity to â€˜pirateâ€™ the global techno-economic networks: its microscopic â€˜mindâ€™ allows it to act in a macrotechnological, planetary scale. That is why the first effect of the virus was so spectacular and so COVID-19 would have never been so â€˜effectiveâ€™ without its capacity to â€˜pirateâ€™ the global techno-economic networks: its microscopic â€˜mindâ€™ allows it to act in a macrotechnological, planetary scale. That is why the first effect of the virus was so spectacular and so disastrous: contemporary Leviathan petrified for a moment while facing its own doppelganger. This meditation on the current condition starts from a passage from Dostoevskyâ€™s Crime and Punishment and continues by examining the possibilities of philosophy in times of global panic. disastrous: contemporary Leviathan petrified for a moment while facing its own doppelganger. This meditation on the current condition starts from a passage from Dostoevskyâ€™s Crime and Punishment and continues by examining the possibilities of philosophy in times of global panic.

Theatre in the Digital World. The Experiment of Theater Treffen 2020

Violeta Decheva — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

An overview and analysis of Berliner Theater Treffen 2020. Existing already for 56 years, this major European theatre festival and the most representative one for the Germanspeaking world ventured on its first online edition. COVID-19 situation has not only activated the ongoing discussions on the influence of digital technologies on theatre, but has made it a most urgent topic. It has become central because of the isolation, the sudden flood of streamings of concerts, performances, films, etc. Two topics seem especially important in the festival context. First, how to make theatre in a digital format and what kind of theatre phenomena are produced in consequence of such experiments. Second, what are the possibilities when streaming theatre productions.

Quarantinescapes

Yordan Eftimov — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A triptych comprised of micro-essays from the first days of the quarantine announced in Bulgaria on March 13, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The focus is on the acute experience, that is, on the imagery of the world in our mind, on the perception of reality shaped by memory.

Pandemic Thoughts on the Future of Cities

Gergana Stefanova — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Will the COVID-19 pandemic change the future of the cities in any way? This paper tries to answer some of the questions related to the overcrowding of the cities, the relationship between living conditions, air pollution, risks of future pandemics, etc., and the role of architects and urban planners. â€œAnd today is only yesterdayâ€™s tomorrowâ€¦â€, sing Uriah Heep, so itâ€™s up to us what kind of World we will leave to our children and grandchildrenâ€¦

NBU Center for the Book, Virtually

Nadya Terzieva — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The text presents the digital activities of the New Bulgarian University (NBU) Center for the Book during the time of pandemic, declared state of emergency and the closure of the university. The publication covers the work of the Publishing House, the Library, the University Archives and the Readersâ€™ Club. In the period of isolation, the NBU Publishing House published new books in various fields and presented them via Facebook due to the impossibility to hold live meetings in the bookstore of the Center. During this period, the NBU Library (which is a combination of traditional and electronic resources and services) supported online learning through remote services. The University Archive presented virtually the personal archives of Prof. Milcho Leviev and Prof. Miroslav Yanakiev. The NBU Readersâ€™ Club maintained its interest in reading by publishing video reviews of books selected before the pandemic, as Arthur Haleyâ€™s Airport, Svetlana Aleksievichâ€™s Chernobyl Prayer, and Olga Tokarchukâ€™s Flights.

Sense and Nonsense. CÃ©zanneâ€™s Doubt

Maurice Merleau-Ponty — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Sense and Nonsense (Sens et non-sens) is the first major collection published by Maurice Merleau-Ponty at Editions Nagel in 1948. The triple division of topics dedicated to art, philosophy, and politics will be kept up to his last posthumously published book, Visible and Invisible (1964). Similarly, his specific theory of art is fostered through the years by his interest in CÃ©zanneâ€™s life and work. CÃ©zanneâ€™s Doubt is a key text for any philosophy due to the challenging questions it poses ranging from psychoanalysis and depth psychology to ontology of art, awareness of meaning, predetermination, and freedom borne by the contact of oneâ€™s interior and exterior world. With the Doubt we continue to ask ourselves: What is that all-encompassing which is expressed by the small word â€˜seeâ€™? How to grasp the positive sense of creativity? What is that â€˜more enigmatic intertwined inthe very roots of beingâ€™? (The text appears for the first time in Bulgarian translated from the French by prof. Lidia Denkova.)

To Follow a Dream: Ethiopia

Vladimir Dimitrov — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The author makes a concise survey of the Ethiopian history and art with an accent on the Christian cultural legacy. The article is an introduction to a more detailed travelogue / photo narrative that will be published in a next issue of SLEDVA.

The Dialogue of Stories and Pictures

Mihail Nedelchev — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In Prince and Plague â€“ a Relatively Late Avant-garde Project of 1931 Nikolay Rainov is one of the greatest experimenters of Bulgarian literature not just in terms of style but in terms of genre as well. His late modernist project Prince and Plague, with â€˜fearful fairy talesâ€™ and illustrations, is among the most daring ones of the fading Bulgarian avant-garde. Published in two carefully designed books with a thematic series of drawings and pictures, these works have not yet found their adequate interpretation. Announced as children books, they obviously seek for an audience more radical in its thoughts and senses. Art historians have often defined these works as â€˜secessionistâ€™ but no doubt they could be placed somewhere betweenthe extreme expressionism and the surrealism.

The New Testament in Nikolay Rainovâ€™s Novel "Between Desert and Life"

Maria Ogoyska — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The text offers a parallel and juxtaposing reading of the canonical evangelical texts and Nikolay Rainovâ€™s novel Between Desert and Life. It is known that in his complicated transformation of the New Testament, the writer implants theosophical ideas in his narration radically changing the meaning and the message. Which is more, his incarnation of God is, in a strange way, evil and misanthropic. The interpretation shows closeness between passages of the novel and the book N. Rainov was translating at that time (1919) â€“ Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Clariceâ€™s Secret. On The Foreign Legion (A legiÃ£o estrangeira, 1964) by Clarice Lispector

Nadezhda Radulova — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The 13 stories of the collection The Foreign Legion (A legiÃ£o estrangeira, 1964), the first appearance of Clarice Lispector in Bulgarian, are a piece of hypnotic writing that is difficult to compare with any other writerâ€™s language of that time. On the one hand, this prose has a memory of the European modernism with the experimental spirit of the Left Bank of the Seine, with elements of literary cubism and delicate traces of Judaic mysticismâ€¦ On the other hand, the European refinement and suffistication are literally shaken by the local culture with its smell of jungle and its colorfully hysterical Latin American Catholicism.

Alcaloids as Part of Russian Festive Culture

Irina Georgieva — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The text analyses extensively the role of alcohol in Russian culture in terms of anthropology and literary history â€“ from the traditional folklore, through 17th century texts, diary entries by Nicholas II of Russia about having champagne with the cavalry, drinking in the times of Stalin, Khrushchev, Gorbachov, in the youth subculture circles and the alcohol in some key literary texts of those periods.

Not a Forest but a Neon Technological Urban Tree (On the Exhibition In Front of Me, 2020)

Ventsislav Zankov — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The authorâ€™s exhibition In Front of Me is a visual symbiosis of two themes: two crises intertwined in the human behavior â€“ the ecological one and the social one borne by the pandemic situation that turns into a deeper existential crisis and questioning of the human. The trees represented in large-scale paintings are not a forest but rather some singular entities, bare-stripped crowns strenuously cut into a gloomy sky.

Carol Rama and the Pleasure of Image

Eva-Maria Ivanova — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Carol Rama is one of the most provocative artists of the XX and XXI centuries. Although in different periods her work has been associated with some of the significant artistic movements of the XX century, such as surrealism, art brut, arte povera, she does not join any of the leading trends and artistic groups. This makes her work a challenge to the history of contemporary art.

Groundless, Unsanctioned, and Unviolable Beauty (Christo and Jeanne-Claude at the UniArt Gallery)

Rosena Ivanova — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Choices that must be made when dealing with artworks defying representation challenge the curators to rethink the exhibition space and seek new ways to tell a story within it. This text is focused on the curatorial approach to an exhibition of posters from various site-specific projects by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The text is also about the unique character of the works themselves as depicted on the posters, about the social and political background that connects Christo and the Bulgarian audience which was subtly contextualised in the NBU exhibition building.

Some Public Buildings of Vasilyov-Tsolov Architectural Bureau

Mitko Anatoliev — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

After a short survey of influences of German architecture on the formation of Bulgarian architectural scene after the Liberation (1878), the paper focuses on the interwar period known for its architectural practices, consisting of two leading architects. The influence of the modernist movements from this period on the classical architecture of the state and public buildings in Bulgaria is traced through the history of Vasilyov-Tsolov Architectural Bureau, its formation and philosophy. The article presents four examples of their significant projects, which are the pinnacle of their careers and largely shape the urban look of Sofia city center, having become its symbols, namely: St. Nedelya Church, Sofia University Library, the National Library, and Bulgarian National Bank.

Crowdsourcing in Support of BNT Public Function

Maria Cholakova — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The text is driven by the concept of crowdsourcing and seeks its application in support of the public function of the Bulgarian National Television. The author develops concrete suggestions how to implement user-generated content for the benefit of the public media content.

The Coin (Awarded play, excerpt)

Boyan Kracholov — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A young man â€“ The Writer â€“ has passed on and has turned up on the shore of the river Styx, without having anything to pay with to The Ferryman. The Ferryman agrees to let him travel the dreams of those, who call for him, who miss him, so he could convince them to bring him a coin. Wandering between the dreams of The Prostitute (whom he paid with stories, as he had no money) and The Publisher (who is to publish The Writerâ€™s first book) and helping his only friend (The Tramp) to pass on as well, stuck between this world and the one beyond, The Writer is forced to revise his whole life, his attitude towards money, love and his art, so he could meet his Admirer at the end. But is The Writer worthy of admiration at all? And what were his relationships â€“ were they not based entirely on money, or was there anything else?

Svetlana (Nominated play, excerpt)

Kalina Terziyska — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Svetlana is a theatre collage of soulscapes of a few women born in Bulgaria, Russia and the USA before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Memories from the past alternate with letters, fantasies, and conflicts. The story of Svetlana Alliluyeva, Stalinâ€™s daughter, is in the center of the play. Parallel to it is the story of Ada, born in the 1970s Bulgaria. Mainly in the form of monologues, the two women speak on the topic of money, truth, family, and the imprint of history on every personâ€™s life.

The Inheritance (Nominated play, excerpt)

Tania Yordanova (Rein) — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A drama that began in 1990 when Annie was born. Already on the first night after her birth, dreams that took on the images of three men visit her. They predict that she is the one who will reveal the family secrets and their souls will be comforted because the dead are said â€žeither good or nothing but the truthâ€. Time is an ally with the dreams. Events follow, but the time changes the years impartially. Ten years later, Annieâ€™s grandmother and father die in a disaster. She, her mother and her brother also end up in the hospital.

Assets (Nominated play, excerpt)

Theodora Georgieva — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A dystopian play representing a world based entirely on the number of assets people have. (Assets - points equal to the cash owned by each person.) People accumulate assets since childhood; the number of their assets determines their education, access to food, medicines, work. The main conflict is between the material represented by the Branch Managers who direct the assets flow, and the spiritual, represented by those who oppose them. The play is set in a city recently taken by the Branch. The new government promises progress and better life and most people support it. But there are others who disagree because they cannot stand the prohibition of music, books, parties.

About Money and Other Important Things (Nominated play, excerpt)

Theodora Panayotova — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The characters of the play are students in 1st, 3rd and 5th grade who are friends from school and neighborhood. They are from different socio-economic backgrounds depending on their parentsâ€™ work and social status. They share their problems, disappointments, dreams. The culmination of the play is their escape from school and going to the scating rink. On top of this forbidden act they lost a large amount of money that they have to give back (without telling the adults because they will be punished). Thus, the characters experience different trials, revealing their feelings, helping each other, demonstrating friendship, love, determination, as well as envy, bluster, rudeness. Each act of the play develops a separate financial theme, the complex issues are presented in a funny, playful way.