Mapping Bulgaria North West Bulgaria 2009

A regional programme of cultural interventions with young people and history teachers focusing upon arts, social trama and historical memory.

2009 marked the 20th anniversary of the end of an era across much of Europe including Bulgaria. Communism ended on the 10th of November 1989. But how was this subject being approached by teachers of history in Bulgaria? And how did students respond to the stories of the lives of their immediate families? This project became a significant contribution to the subject of memory studies, teaching methodologies and the way social trauma and the way in which history is constructed often overlap and intersect one another. It aims to address the asymmetry in perception and the way it affects at least three generations – our parents, us and the generation born after 1989. It will also ask how they make life choices, about ways of thinking, ways of looking at identity. The project aims to involve young people, together with their teachers, parents and grandparents from the region in a debate and search for the answers and - in an interesting journey with one “simple” mission - to search for their own identity.

Download the bilingual book, written by Chris Baldwin and Mariana Assenova (English and Bulgarian).

The notes marking the working process you can find here.