The purpose of the conference is to offer different perspectives and to debate the question how the histories of arts (especially of theatre) for the period 1945 – 1989 are written / recounted. This question refers to value choices but also to methodological strategies. Which should be the dominant historical perspective? – of the empirical description of processes, facts and events, of the contextualization of art works and authors, of the reconstruction of the censorship’s mechanisms or of the resistances against the political regime? How to construct the historical narrative about this period? – following the line of art works that retain their former value even after the fall of the regime or following those which were negations of official normative aesthetics? How to find the balance between the impartial analysis of the art language and the assessment of the civic engagement of its creators?

Participants in the conference are researchers of cultural processes and theater specialists from Bulgaria and other Eastern European countries.

Working languages: English and Bulgarian.

Venue: Press-Centre, Festival and Congress Centre