The New Topic

Sixth National History Competition (2009-2010)

Where is the place of the Past and how it runs into the Present? Why is so important to remember events and personalities and arranged them in the cities, in squares and memorials, or to commemorate them in the calendar of national holydays? We have many stories how the Past jumps over in the Present and Future? In many of them historical facts interlace with the opinions about the historical events. In some of the stories there are reflections of pride, frustration or nostalgia.

Unlike objective history there is no one-sided memory about events and personalities. What we want to remember from national or family history depends on the trills and troubles of the Present. The memory is a look back in the Past which belongs to the Present and has its emotional intensity of intentions, interpretations and opinions. It means that memory has many faces – deferent people and communities (families, municipalities, cultural and religious groups) can remember one and the same event in different ways with different opinions. That is why it depends on the storyteller if one event or personality is remembered with pride and sympathy or it is rejected or forgotten.

It is the Present that determines people’s attitude to the Past and what part of it is remembered, that is why in your stories you may find both the Past and the Present. This will be clear when the story is about memorial places - when it is built, by whom, where, who brings flowers to the memorial of the unknown soldier – all these are stories of the Past, as well about its continuation in the Present, about making the places of memory alive by the contemporaries.

We keep our memories about the Past not only in objects like monuments and exhibitions, but in the moments of official calendar like anniversaries and commemoration too. When and why Bulgarian government decided to organized a massive campaign to celebrate 1300 years since the establishment of the Bulgarian state is very important, because it shows official political and ideological engagement. What kind of feelings we have when we mention Belene today? How we appreciate the official policy of the Socialist government during the so called “Revival process”? These are examples of change of rationalization of past events. And how one everyday event, like the trip by bus could become exhibit in a museum – this is one more example for reconstruction of the Past in the Present.