The Museum of Socialist Art

I visited the Museum of Socialist Art in Sofia today. It’s very small and oddly located, right next to the parking lot where new cars are registered. The surroundings are chaotic, with all the cars. Inside are a handful of powerful cult objects from the past. Not many, but still worth seeing. That said, the museum is probably best visited with a tour guide. Without context, it feels less like a curated collection and more like a dumping ground for socialist garbage. A tour guide can help with the significance of these things, otherwise they’re just ugly random items and decapitated statue heads.

Petoluchkata

The star, now hidden behind a parking, (bumper of a car still visible), was once put on top of the present-day parliament. The photos two and three show you the pilon, it used to be on top of that. The most centrally located element in Sofia.

The legend said it was maid of ruby. Clearly not but that’s what we believed during Socialism. It was removed and tossed behind the central bath shortly after the change of the system.

Malchika

Adalbert Antonov aka Malchika, one of the Five of RMS (workers youth union). He was part of the anti-fascist movement and was executed in 1942, which turned him to a Socialist martyr. The biggest producer of sweets in Sofia, the Happiness factory, was nationalized and renamed after him, and then became Nestle Bulgaria. This particular statue is of no particular importance, there are still many, spread accross the country and still standing. However, it represents one of the important foundational legends for the Bulgarian communism.

Marx, Engels, Lenin

Socialism tended to worship some ultra-smart old men as as gods, always in groups of three. However, the groups of threes kept changing, depending on the current geopolitical climate and the shape of the clouds. Marx, Engels, Lenin was one of the threes, but also Lenin, Stalin, Dimitrov. I had zero knowledge of who these people were and what they did to become Communist Gods, and we didn’t study them too much, perhaps because that would lose the flexibility to replace one of them with a more modern figure on demand.

I knew them primarily from statues, billboards, murals and so on, which were everywhere.

Zhivkov and Brezhnev

Building statues of living people was considered fine by communists. Todor Zhivkov, who was the acting dictator for a period of 33 years, also built statues of himself. Someone recovered a head, which likely used to be attached to a body, and placed it behind a staircase, oddly located and assymetrical. I suspect sure it was done on purpose, humiliating the dictator, rather than celebrating him.

The painting was more interesting. It looks almost AI-generated but is full of symbolism. Zhivkov is behind the USSR leader Brezhnev, has only 3 stars, while Brezhnev has 4. Brezhnev is with a red tie, while Zhivkov isn’t. They’re of equal height, despite being different in real life. Anything to please the masters, and to indicate that Zhivkov is very important but not the most important. Frendly old fellows.

Some Art I Liked

Famous painters were no shy of doing communist art. They painted workers, building the socialist dream. Women with dresses, men with flat caps and strong arms, everyone out there, under the sun.

The last painting by Liliana Ruseva, called The Teacher, shows Pioneers – essentially kids with red ties. We were all supposed to go to school with these red ties and approved haircuts. If one was off – without a tie or with too much hair – they could be sent back home. The school had an official tie-fighter at the doors. There were no uniforms, though, it’s just for the painting.