The Bulgarian Monument to the Soviet Army: Visual Burlesque, Epic, and the Emergence of Comic Subjectivity

Abstract

Drawing on the psychoanalytical theory of Jacques Lacan, rhetorical scholars can delineate between subversive and conservative comedy-conceived not in terms of genre but as modes of subjectivity articulation that produce perspectival shifts within a given symbolic configuration-in ways that allow us to theorize, and to possibly map, the production of an active critical subject. I analyze two visual political interventions-a graffiti artwork and a 3D animated projection-onto the façade of the contested Monument to the Soviet Army in Sofia, Bulgaria. The interventions' rhetorical potential hinges on the dialogic deployment of subversive and conservative burlesque and of the epic. To delineate between subversive burlesque, which entails identification with rupture or the irreducible antagonism constitutive of any social-discursive formation, and conservative burlesque, for which rupture only serves to reaffirm an ideologically assured identity, I draw on Alenka Zupančič's typology of comedy. The subversive burlesque can open space for agency and social critique by short-circuiting the relationship between the universal and the particular elements in a given ideological formation, while the conservative burlesque and the epic leave that relationship intact.

Civilizational mnemonicsand thelongue durée: The Bulgarian case

“…These actions have been successful (to a certain degree) in reconfiguring the monuments' political meaning, offering a visual critique on contemporary post-socialist reality, and a mobilizing of a counterculture toward national emancipation from Soviet political and cultural hegemony. 8 Identifying hegemony's provisional character, however, is insufficient for an actual change of its symbolic configuration (Ivanova, 2014). The compositions of socialist monuments endorse the nationalist politics, where commentaries often blindly reproduce this nationalist political turn.…”

Curating (Post-)Socialist Environments

“…In the case of Sofia, there were proposals, for example, of building a 'park of horror' or a building of the National History Museum around it, of transforming it into an Orthodox church, or of substituting it by monuments to the Christianization of Bulgaria, the national hero Vassil Levski, the medieval ruler Khan Krum or by a Triumphal Arch. Worldwide attention was also gained through several acts of pouring paints of different colours over the monument on the occasions of the anniversary of the Prague Spring and the annexation of Crimea, and through the creative repainting of the main side relief into characters of U.S. American pop culture (Ivanova 2014;Valiavicharska 2014). In the context of the local elections in 2019, a new project of 'hiding' the monument in a specially prepared hill with natural greenery -that would give a fresh new look to the centre of the Bulgarian capital -was promoted.…”

“…From Budapest and Prague to Tallinn and Vilnius, the entire region of the former communist bloc was shaken by public debates around former memorial sites, whose fates as destroyed, reshaped or preserved historical references continue to produce tensions on local, national and international levels. Indicative examples of the latter (though definitely not encompassing the multitude of cases) are the monuments to the Soviet army in the region, which have been regular focal points for contestations and memory wars between colliding historical interpretations and the different states, ethnic communities and political agents that have come to support them (Ochman 2010;Ivanova 2014; regarding the notorious case of the "Bronze Soldier" in Tallin, see Burch/Smith 2007;Zhurzhenko 2007;Brüggemann/Kasekamp 2008). Aside from the direct political implications, the iconoclastic acts and discussions related to the symbols of communist power were also indicative of the efforts of post-socialist societies to rework the surrounding environments and organise anew the material worlds they lived in (Yampolski 1995;Levinson 1998;Michalski 1998).…”

The comic counterfactual: Laughter, affect, and civic alternatives

“…106 In a culture jamming episode with a Bulgarian monument, for example, Ivanova notes how "the comic movement of the composition also suggest[s] that whatever may (or may not) come next will also be just another particular universal." 107 Similarly, both the "comic" and "counterfactual" have an ambivalence about commitments to any construction built into their pluralistic architectures, which may be problematic for creating solid political footing or structures for governance. Rhetorical scholars have stressed that the polyvalence and unpredictability of ironic satire can limit the rhetorical potential in such forms.…”