From the early years the communist regime promoted a new form of "educational tourism": schools, "houses of culture", workers' clubs, professional associations and many other ideologically motivated organisations kept on organizing excursionist groups that should discover the places considered “sacred” by the Party. In the middle of these large memorial areas was usually a monument of considerable size. All around were big parking lots - at least for the traffic of that time - and frugal eateries. They can still be visited, even though spoiled by the time

A lot of plaques of communist era can still be found on the walls of Bulgaria. This is particularly evident in the towns that were transformed into living sanctuaries of the Nation and of Socialism such as Batak, Bratsigovo or Perushitsa. Plaques glorifying party heroes are immediately recognizable: “hammer and sickle” or the five-pointed star have always a dominant position.

Busts, ever presents in the years of the regime, formed a kind of Pantheon that covered the whole country. They were often dedicated to heroes or party officials, who were only locally known at that time. Today you can find many of them in villages and small towns.

Monuments and images of the communist era that you still find in the squares or on the roadsides of Bulgaria do not only immortalize the sculpted bodies and triumphant choreographies imposed by the socialist realism of the soviet era. In fact, the first, timid attempts to break those rigid rules began in the late 1950s. Subjects, techniques and colours were taken up and developed in different artistic experiences such as the neorealism of Guttuso and the mexican “Muralism”.

In the years of the socialist regime, a wave of memorial stones, towers, pyramids of different sizes marked the ever present “places of memory”, even the minor ones, considered ideologically relevant by the party. You can find them by chance in the middle of the public gardens or at the edge of side streets. With a little bit of luck you can find them also in less obvious places: for example in the middle of a crowded beach on the Black Sea, on the top of a lonely hill or in the dense vegetation that often covers the Balkan mountains.

Sgraffito is a technique produced by applying layers of plaster tinted in contrasting colours to a moistened surface and then scratching off parts of the layers to create contrasting images and reveal the colour underneath. The tools used are special loop tools. After the “sgraffio (scratching off)”, the image traced by the artist and the colours underneath can be seen. Obviously, this operation does not allow second attempts or execution errors. This old decoration technique was introduced in Bulgaria in the 1950s. Many examples can still be found especially in the cities of Plovdiv and Veliko Tarnovo.

Starting from the end of the 1950s, new, ambitious bridges were built in several cities. They often housed large statues inspired by a bit stereotypical classicism, or remembering persons or episodes of national history dear to the regime.

In the squares of many villages or at the edges of secondary country roads, you can still come across many airplanes - usually Migs - and tractors - usually soviet – that when their function ended, were transformed into celebrations to memorable events, shining examples of the Modernity assured to the "new" bulgarians by the socialist regime that ruled the country from 1944 to 1989.

Only in the second half of the 1950s leading figures of episodes prior to September 9, 1944 began to appear on Bulgarian monuments. They were not related to the epoch of resistance or to the dominant myth of the Red Army. In the name of a common tradition of struggle against oppressors, “patriots” of earlier epochs were then included among the heroes of a national and socialist Pantheon. Old emperors and key players of the national Renaissance, saints and poets, intellectuals or noble Balkan bandits should testify, at least as intended by the accommodating historiography of the regime, the existence of an “eternal” Bulgaria, that survived dark ages until the salvific advent of Communism

Only in the second half of the 1950s leading figures of episodes prior to September 9, 1944 began to appear on Bulgarian monuments. They were not related to the epoch of resistance or to the dominant myth of the Red Army. In the name of a common tradition of struggle against oppressors, “patriots” of earlier epochs were then included among the heroes of a national and socialist Pantheon. Old emperors and key players of the national Renaissance, saints and poets, intellectuals or noble Balkan bandits should testify, at least as intended by the accommodating historiography of the regime, the existence of an “eternal” Bulgaria, that survived dark ages until the salvific advent of Communism.</

Only in the second half of the 1950s leading figures of episodes prior to September 9, 1944 began to appear on Bulgarian monuments. They were not related to the epoch of resistance or to the dominant myth of the Red Army. In the name of a common tradition of struggle against oppressors, “patriots” of earlier epochs were then included among the heroes of a national and socialist Pantheon. Old emperors and key players of the national Renaissance, saints and poets, intellectuals or noble Balkan bandits should testify, at least as intended by the accommodating historiography of the regime, the existence of an “eternal” Bulgaria, that survived dark ages until the salvific advent of Communism.</.

Vasil Levski was born in Karlovo in 1837. The "Apostle of Freedom", as he is still remembered today, is definitely the national hero of modern Bulgaria. For years, he had been working to create a dense regional network of secret committees aimed at organising a collective anti-Ottoman armed revolt. Independence, freedom and the republican choice: these themes are very similar to those of Mazzini and his 'Giovine Italia'. Betrayed by a comrade, he was arrested by the turkish police and then executed in Sofia in 1873. There are many plaques and busts dedicated to him even in the socialist era.

Hristo Botev, patriot, publicist and poet, was born in Kalofer in 1848. In 1876 with a small group of volunteers, he disembarked on the Bulgarian shore of the Danube: with this romantic gesture he wanted to promote a general uprising of Bulgarians against Ottoman occupation. His attempt failed. Pursued by turkish troops, he died with his last fellows in the mountains dominating the city of Vratsa. Countless memorial celebrations were dedicated to him during the years of the regime. Even his poetry texts were not forgotten: the words “...he who falls in freedom’s fight, dies not”, were soon an almost obligatory presence in socialist monuments.

The April Uprising against Ottomans is one of the founding myths of modern Bulgaria. The national pride of the rebels and the extremely harsh reaction of the turkish army - so bloody that it shocked public opinion all over Europe – put the necessary but tragic premises for the liberation of the country only two years later, at the end of the war of 1877-78.

In april 1877 russian and romanian troops, helped by Bulgarian volunteers, disembarked on the southern shore of the Danube. Clashes against the ottoman army began immediately: this was the beginning of an another Balkan war. The defeat of the turks, recognised in the treaties of the following year, laid the foundations for an independent Bulgaria and put an end to an occupation that lasted five-centuries.

After the russian-ottoman War of 1877-78 the Treaty of Berlin divided Bulgaria into two parts: a politically autonomous principality and the province of Eastern Rumelia, formally still under the control of Istanbul. On September 6, 1885 the representatives of these two territories declared the birth of the new State of Bulgaria, unilaterally and violating Treaty. Today, even in monuments, this date is celebrated together with an immediately following event: the war broken out between Serbia and Bulgaria in November of the same year. The subsequent peace treaty was signed by bulgarian plenipotentiaries on behalf of the new State. With the acquiescence of the european Great Powers, the reunification of the country became an accomplished fact.

Listed below are "commemorative objects"of socialist time that, because of the dominant presence of the "hammer and sickle" and the five-pointed star or because of the history of the character and event celebrated, are most closely related to the Bulgarian Communist Party and its founding myths

In September 1918, after the breaking of the Macedonian front, some units of the Bulgarian army abandoned their positions and headed towards the capital. In a revolutionary rush, the monarchy was abolished and the Republic established. This rebellion had an unfortunate end: the revolutionary soldiers were killed at the gates of Sofia by troops loyal to the king. This rebellion became one of the events celebrated by the regime's historiography as an active testimony of the indomitable, anthropological drive of Bulgarians towards freedom and at the same time as a necessary sacrifice on the providential pathway that ended when Socialism came to power after September 9, 1944.

In June 1923 Aleksandăr Stambolijski, winner of the elections with the Farmers' Union and prime minister, was first deposed by a coup d'état and then brutally murdered. The communist party at first proclaimed its political neutrality about the fall of his legitimate but “bourgeois” government. Only two months later- August 7, 1923- the Central Committee passed a motion in which it stated, on the contrary, that it was necessary to react to the coup regime "... through an armed uprising of the masses, in the name of the workers' and peasants' government". The insurrection organised and promoted for September had a catastrophic outcome for the insurgents. After a few days of weak resistance, Georgi Dimitrov too crossed the Yugoslav border and left the camp along with more than 1,000 comrades. “September 1923” subsequently became one of the founding myths of the communist regime, simultaneously the “first anti-fascist uprising in the world” and a tragic but providential act of birth of a true “bolshevik” and revolutionary party in Bulgaria.

In april 1925 the communist party organized a bomb attack at St. Nedelya cathedral of Sofia, During the State funeral of General Georghiev, a large quantity of explosive material blew up: 163 people died and more than 200 were injured. The “white terror” that followed was tolerated and promoted by the government in charge: for months members and leaders of left-wing parties had been hunted and brutally killed. Often arbitrarily, they were accused of being involved in the bomb attack. Many memorials dedicated to this episode and to its victims can still be seen today.

According to a chronology inherited from the years of the regime, the bulgarian partisan movement was born on August 22, 1941 when the Nazi troops entered the Soviet Union and ended on September 9, 1944 when also the State, in accordance with the partisans coming down from the mountain, became “socialist”. In spite of the relatively modest number of Bulgarian partisans, between 1944 and 1989 the country was filled with plaques, memorial stones, busts, fictitious tombstones, statues and monuments of different sizes aimed at commemorating that idolized saga.

The communist coup d'état of September 9, 1944 definitively reversed Bulgaria's international alliances: the national army, shortly before allied with the Axis powers, stood under the command of the third Ukrainian front of the Red Army that pursued the German troops retreating to Yugoslavia. Many monuments were built in the socialist era to commemorate soldiers who lost their lives at that time: in marble they were labeled as bulgarians heroically fallen in the “Patriotic War” proclaimed years earlier by Stalin, in order to incite the citizens of the USSR to resist against the Nazi invader.

Many and impressive monuments to the Red Army can still be seen visiting the country. They are dedicated to those who – with the words of the propaganda of that time - had guaranteed the 'Freedom from Fascism and Capitalism' to the new socialist State. Afterwards many military successes achieved by the russian army during the war of 1877-78 had been celebrated. The myth of the “Two Liberations”, created in different time by Russians and by Soviets, became a classic in the communist historiography, the ripe fruit of a Slavic Brotherhood that, beyond any ideological scheme, embodies itself first in the Tsar and, then, in Stalin.

In rural Bulgaria of first decades of the 20th century, Aleksandar Stamboliyski and his Agrarian Union were a formidable competitor and , in some way, an obstacle to the establishment of the socialist movement. Anyway, after 9th september 1944, he had been included in the Pantheon of the regime's political ancestors. So the prime minister overthrown by the coup d'état in June 1923 and his followers who lost their lives then, were the only militants of a different party than the communist one, officially commemorated in the monuments built between 1944 and 1989.

In the monuments to the “Generations of Fighters", patriots who fell in the anti-Ottoman uprisings of the 19th century were generally commemorated togheter with the militants who lost their lives in the uprising of September 1923 and in the partisan struggle. This was the artistic realisation of an assumption in the regime's historiography: those three “revolutionary” epochs belonged to a providential pathway to freedom that ended on September 9, 1944 with the Communist party's seizure of power.

According to the propaganda of the regime, the "People's Republic" represented the happy end of a winding national path. Therefore also the official Bulgarian flag was changed: close to a scroll both 681 - the year of birth of a first Bulgaria - and 1944- when the Fatherland Front seized power- appeared together.

In order to emphasize the strong patriotic origin of bulgarian Socialism, a series of monuments were erected in 1981 to celebrate the 1300th anniversary of Bulgaria. Emperors with statuesque bodies and ancient leaders invariably appear in a fierce and bellicose attitude.

Around Bulgaria you can find statues, sgraffiti, mosaics and many appications where workers, miners, machinists, roadmen and brigade members engaged in volunteer work appear with many farm wives carrying on their shoulders the fruits of their work in the fields. They are the leading figures of a new faith in “Work” and therefore in Socialism, that the communist regime tried tirelessly to promote.

The female figure appears in monuments of the socialist era with many, different, representations: they range from the vestal offering bread and salt to the wayfarer, according to an old Slavic traditions, to the ethereal angel symbolising fertility, from the faithful wife welcoming the return of the victorious soldier to the happy mother surrounded by noisy children or grieving the loss of a son far away. Images of active and determined female militants are not lacking. They are often portrayed with attitudes normally associated with men stereotypes.

Socialist-era monuments to athletes with statuesque bodies are often present in the urban landscapes of Bulgarian cities. In those years, the invitation to practice sports was permanent: as these statues simbolically testified, the mass got back in shape and this was a precious artistic tool to magnify successes and the collective “Progress” ensured to the Country by the communist regime.

The Brigade Movement was born in the early post-war years. Its purpose was to organise and promote volunteer work in order to perform public works considered essential by the regime, obviously at very low cost. Its symbol consisted of a spade, a pickaxe and the Dimitrov's profile. Even the “pioneers”, to which all students between 9 and 14 were enrolled by authority, appeared sometimes in monuments of the socialist era.

In the socialist era, a long, ironclad procedure ensured that every single commemorative object respected ideological narratives and historiographical myths hammered out by the party authorities. There are therefore few “dissonant monuments” that seem to contain, at least in appearance and today, messages that are not perfectly aligned with the dominant orthodoxy.