This post continues the series begun with Mircea Grozdea’s Arta monumentală în România socialistă [Monumental Art in Socialist Romania] (1973), providing some comparative perspectives on socialist monumentality in the Balkan region via surveys published during the socialist years. Today the focus is on Bulgaria, with Veneta Ivanova’s Българска монументална скулптура: развитие и проблеми [Bulgarian Monumental Sculpture: Development and Issues] (1978).
Bulgaria’s vast territory contains some of socialist Eastern Europe’s most striking monuments, many of which are perfect paradigms of what Christina Lodder calls the “restrained modernism” of the Soviet monumental style–a coupling of clearly legible figuration with dynamic Cubist influences that resulted in chiselled and muscular socialist heroes. The book is written in Bulgarian, but contains a summary section in German in its back section. Even for those unable to read the text, however, the images are invaluable evidence of the creative fecundity of artists engaged in monumental projects in Bulgaria. The survey stretches back to monuments created in the country’s ancient past, leaping forward to cover the 19th and 20th centuries in detail and establishing a sweeping narrative of monumental practices.
Happy reading!
afterart 