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From the Newspaper to the Museum - the caricatures of Socialism on show at the Museum of Socialist Art 

Photo: BTA

The exhibition "From the Newspaper to the Museum", which has been attracting visitors to the Socialist Art Museum in Sofia for the past five months, is an attempt to reconstruct the genre of caricature under the totalitarian system of government in Bulgaria between 1944 and 1989. 

It contains 150 cartoons from this period by legendary masters of caricature such as Iliya Beshkov, Alexander Zhendov, Boris Angelushev, Stoyan Venev, Boris Dimovski, Donyo Donev, Asen Grozev, Georgi Anastasov, Tsvetan Tsekov - Karandash, Georgi Chaushov, Stefan Despodov and others. 

The cartoons are mainly published in newspapers. Most of the cartoons in the exhibition appeared in the pages of the weekly Shturmovak (Storm Trooper) and Chasovoy (Sentry) - a publication for the Bulgarian army fighting the Nazis on the battle fronts in Yugoslavia, Hungary and Austria. The first issue of the humorous weekly Starshel (Hornet) appeared in 1946, and its title has since become synonymous with Bulgarian cartooning.



The comic, as an aesthetic and ethical category, has long since become a powerful tool for influence, propaganda, and the imposition of ideas and ideologies. Totalitarian societies used it skilfully, turning the unique human ability to laugh into a weapon, according to the curators of the exhibition, which is open to the public until 31 March. 



Under the conditions of the Cold War, the main subject of satire was the political and economic doctrine of the Western world. Making fun of the Communist Party was completely off limits. The authorities were criticised only at the lowest administrative level - the civil servants. Negative phenomena - bureaucracy, poor customer service, inefficiency and low quality of production, and the formal attitude to work - became the target of cartoonists.

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