BULGARIAN THEATRE – INTERSECTION OF CULTURAL INTERACTIONS Seminar

The first meeting of the year of the seminar "BULGARIAN THEATRE – THE CROSSROADS OF CULTURAL INTERACTIONS" will be held on 12 March 2026 at 10:00 in Hall 2 of the Institute of Art Studies.
On the topic "How to think about the cultural specificity of the Bulgarian theatre?" Prof. Nikolay Yordanov, DSc, will present an introductory report. 
The question of the cultural specificity of a national art is valid for a culture that thinks of itself primarily within its national borders and in its national language. Regarding the Bulgarian theatre, this generally applies to the decades from the middle of the 19th to the middle of the 20th century. At that time, we can clearly see how the Bulgarian theatre borrowed European models, mostly from countries such as Germany, France, Italy, and Russia, as well as from neighbouring Balkan countries. These influences were indeed fruitful, contributing to the development of Bulgarian dramaturgy and to the acquisition of acting, directing, scenographic, and choreographic techniques. Simultaneously, the Bulgarian theatre managed to establish its national tradition for nearly a century. However, after the Second World War, we can no longer think of theatre as only a national cultural practice – it became part of an international culture modelled on Soviet ideological dictates. This changed the natural course of its development and separated it from its natural centre of attraction, to which it had gravitated until then – Central and Western Europe. If we look for fruitful cultural influences during the communist decades, these are the philosophical and aesthetic ideas crossing the Iron Curtain, as well as the dissident breakthroughs in other Eastern Bloc countries, including Russia. At the same time, both in its conjunctural adaptation and in its resistance to the regime, the Bulgarian theatre in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s forged its own distinct character. Social changes following 1989 once again necessitated a reformulation of the model and value orientations. In the long transition, our national culture, and in particular the Bulgarian theatre, has the opportunity to rethink its past and identity, as well as to open up to the world and interact with other cultures and many traditions. In seeking landmarks in this complex landscape, the debate about the specifics of our theatrical culture remains ongoing.