REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

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Remembrance in Time
of the Royal palace. The outdoors exhibition also includes sculptures dedicated to the
common socialist worker as for example “Harvesters’ song” by Vaska Emanuilova,
“Women members of a co-operative farm” by Stefana Boyadzhieva, “Fitter” by Iliya
Ivanov, “Shift” by Iva Hadzhieva and others, as well as sculptures dedicated to the antifascist
struggle. Pieces of art are also exhibited that were created before 9 th of September
1944 as for example the bas-reliefs “Engine-driver” from 1933 and “Third class” from
1935 (placed at the inscription with the name of the museum) whose author Ivan Funev is
considered to be one of the originators of socialist realism in Bulgarian sculpture.
The exhibition hall covering an area of 550 m 2 is part of an entirely reconstructed
building, a property of the Ministry of culture, which houses other cultural institutions as
well. The first exhibition in the hall includes 60 pictures and 25 easel art pieces of high
artistic quality created in the first years after 9 th of September 1944 4 . Among the
remarkable pictures from the socialist period are: “The woman supporter of partisans” by
Nenko Balkanski, “After the execution” by Alexander Poplilov, “Welcoming of the
Soviet army” by Stoyan Venev, “Examination” by Nikola Mirchev, “Execution” by Iliya
Petrov and others. In the hall, as well as in the park, some pieces of art are exhibited that
precede the period to which the museum is dedicated. For example pictures like
“September” (1932) by Tsanko Lavrenov dedicated to the September uprising, “A local
cinema” (1942) by Alexander Zhendov, a member of the Communist Party before and
after 9 th of September 1944 and a victim of the purge in the party ranks that took place in
the beginning of the 50’s of the 20 th century. Works by other authors are exhibited which
were branded by the communist authority: by Nikola Tanev who after 9 th of September
1944 was arrested and sent to prison but later rehabilitated; Kiril Petrov who in 1946 was
declared a formalist by the critics of the people’s power regime and was not allowed to
participate in exhibitions until 1961. Among the sculptures in the hall and in the park
there are such that lack the characteristic elements of the dominating artistic method – the
socialist realism (for example the sculpture of a naked female body by Vasil Radoslavov,
“Expectation” by Velichko Minekov and others).
Documentaries from the socialist epoch in Bulgaria are shown in the video hall. They
are from the funds of the Bulgarian National Film Store and present party leaders,
moments from manifestations, work on construction sites etc. Here the visitor could see
frames showing not only the building of the Mausoleum of G. Dimitrov but its
demolishing in 1999 as well, the construction of the Party House and its setting on fire in
1990, and the taking off of the five-pointed star from it. According to the director of the
National Art Gallery the further development of the video programme involves showing
of “feature films from the times of socialism which will be something like a
representative extract of the cinematographic art of that period” 5 .
In the museum café copies of posters from the 50’s of the 20 th century are exhibited,
with various slogans, whose originals are kept in the National Art Gallery. Some of them
are working copies which bear notes written in pencil by authors like Alexander
Stamenov, Ivan Kirkov, Lyuba Pelikarova. Huge posters with the images of Lenin, Stalin,
Georgi Dimitrov, Marx, and Engels are also exhibited which have been used in
demonstrations.
The souvenir shop offers to the visitors various products (cups, t-shirts, ball-point pens)
with the museum’s logo, on which the silhouettes of Stalin, Lenin and Georgi Dimitrov