REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

46
Remembrance in Time
concentration camps is the call to true. Stefan Bochev understands that the path to truth is
extremely difficult in Bulgaria. He believes that the individual and all people must face it, in
order to say the true. This should be done without malice, in the spirit of trying to understand
the other party, that of the oppressors. The author is clearly aware that his story is part of the
Bulgarian destiny, so he does not pretend to have a higher position of his experience, he
shares the historical experience of his generation. This is the power of high awareness of the
mission of the story. The witness does not judge and does not justify the participants, he
argues indirectly with different views, but tries to explain the reasons for the tragic events
drawing lessons for the generation from them.
The narrator leads the reader to associations with Dante's Inferno, when he thinks over
the genesis of evil in the Bulgarian political-historical destiny and bitterly noted that in
Dante's "imaginary view of the afterlife" the convicts receive a sentence by the Lord,
while the Bulgarian executioners surpass their Soviet teachers in the forms of lawlessness
and misery, to which they subject the prisoners. On the island of Persin The House of
Dead is read not because the sufferings are like those in the novel by Russian writer, on
the contrary - with "sighs of envy" Solzhenitsyn talks in his The Gulag Archipelago about
the light regime of convicts in Russia and Bochev was also impressed by the "slow,
walking pace" of the prisoners who could buy boiled beef and cakes when they have a
break. He is amazed by the fact that Dostoevsky had the opportunity to pay to the cook
for a special menu, which happened not to bribe, but by rule.
The plot of the descent into hell repeats the scheme in The House of Dead where the
nobleman approaches to the lives of his people in order to suffer with them. Stefan
Bochev, diplomat and journalist with a brilliant opportunity for personal achievements
abroad, after the establishment of communist dictatorship in our country, refuses to
remain in Switzerland and nobly returns home to experience the terror of the communist
regime. Purity and idealism, high sense of duty and responsibility to the people, sincere
pain for Bulgarian fate rise in his prayers to God, in which the writer thanked for his
meetings with wonderful ordinary Bulgarians during their endurement. Honesty, humility
and patriotism can be found in his preference not to speak of "my country", "my people",
but to feel himself as part of a common destiny.
One of the highlights is the polemics with the mentality of the socialist society in
Chapter 51 "We are not heroes." Bochev´s dispute is colored by the irony to the ideology,
power and mentality of the socialist society. This is a direct clash with the values taught
in anti-fascist fiction, memoirs and official versions of the historical struggle of the
communists to power. The people are separated from their "heroes".
The indirect dispute is based on excellent historical reasoning and diplomatic
preparation, showing that the author has thought over his arguments. Here Bochev
appropriately reminds the alliance between Germany and Soviet Union about the division
of Europe, an alliance between fascism and socialism through the Molotov-Ribbentrop
Pact of August 24, 1939, which turns both countries in allies in the war. By June 22, 1941
in Bulgaria there are no guerrillas, fighting against the "Nazi", "Hitlerism", "Nazi
Germany" because the two forces are allies. He rightly points out that the "heroes" of the
so-called "anti-fascist struggle" won after the entry of the Red Army in Bulgaria. The
power cannot be defined as "people’s" because there is no free vote. In the controversy
there are comparisons with ancient names, witty verbal games are included - "you free
your red herring and try to sell their green caviar", "unique five-year course in truth"
(about the experience at the camp on the island of Persin), "he eated all his lifetime crabs
with beer and red caviar and vodka ", "black caviar is not a healthy diet " (about the life of