IMAGES OF CONTEMPORARY BULGARIA IN THE NEGATIVE DISCOURSE OF THE CHALGA*
Rosmari Statelova
* Excerpt from the monograph
Anthropology of Ethno-Pop Music, 2003, which is now under
publication by Prosveta Publishing House.
KEY WORDS: musical anthropology, ethno-psychoanalysis, bulgarian musical culture, Balkan ethno-pop, pop-folk-hit, vulgar narrative
Already in my paper on Folk Music - the Essence of the
Phenomenon and Its Definition (Statelova 1999), and in my study
Experienced in Bulgaria: Rock, Pop, Folk 1990 – 1994 (Statelova
1995) I included in the scientific apparatus literature, which
usually does not belong to bibliographies of scientific works,
newspaper articles and articles of popular magazines, texts from
radio and television broadcasts, and private oral statements. I
will do the same now because of the topical nature of the
phenomenon examined, which belongs to the subjects frequently
discussed and written about, but in a brief and by-the-way manner.
The inclusion is also methodologically determined: if I
investigate the anthropologically negative discourse of ethno-pop
music in Bulgaria, the text spaces of the press also become an
area of investigation. My newspaper area in this case is first of
all Kultura newspaper (partly Literaturen Vestnik newspaper and
Sega newspaper), which I do not consider mass media, but rather
regard it as an “intellectuals’ club” in the form
of a weekly edition. (The reason for saying this is the
assumption that Kultura newspaper is read and written by the same
people, who communicate with each other by means of articles.)
What I am interested in within the space of the sophisticated
journalism, seen as a field of talking about culture as quality
of life in Bulgaria, is more specifically the talking about
transition as something that happened to the country causing
severe damages. In the mid-90-ies the vision of the people
discussing the subject was still relatively relaxed: the
Bulgarian society “has been roped in on poverty”1.
The description makes use of several degrees: increase (of
morbidity), decrease (of employment), etc. But after so many
years of transition the degrees gradually vanish substituted by
pictures of declassifying, degrading and perishing. This does not
happen like during revolutions and wars, in blood and violence,
but speaking with the sociologist K. Kolev : “ A total of 65%
has bought neither shoes nor clothes for the last two years. 54 %
has not travelled between towns and villages. 20 % has not bought
even a soap.”2 But the neatly formulated
conclusions gradually give way as stylistics to the erotic
influence of the lurid expressiveness of the ethic-aesthetic
“metaphors of tragedy, collapse, dismemberment, decay”
(Dimitar Kamburov). In 2002 the Open Society Foundation financed
the Society Condition study of Alpha Research sociological
agency, whose results have been twice published in Kultura
newspaper. According to the sociologist Zhivko Georgiev “A
total of 76 % of the people have been both objectively and
subjectively declassified, which has resulted in a social
degradation… Their value vault loses its content, and so
does their psychological resource for adequate reacting and
coping.” Ivan Krastev comes to the pessimistic conclusion
that “the elite does not need the people, who have fallen
into a state of total exclusion and inertia.” There is an
“absolute economisation of mass consciousness”, because
of which “the new time” does not have a positive hero
and does not produce positive attitudes in society. Vladislav
Todorov adopts another type of metaphors, the one of the
biological-physical decay. He refers to the fact that “a
total of 60 % of the interviewed persons (i.e. 1975 persons of
the adult population in the country – R. St.) do not have a
child under the age of 18 in their families”, and on the
other hand, a great number of children are abandoned despite them
having parents living together. The moving forces in social
consciousness are the fear of the future and the nostalgia
for the past. People have rights but the access to them costs an
unimaginable amount of money. If they protest, it is not to
change something, but preventing being deprived of something.
Politicians “en bloc” are considered evil, the same way
the Roma are; the trust in the institutions is extremely limited;
the idea of success is regarded as unmoral, and the present
condition of society is accepted not as a final, but as an
unnatural one.3 The only constructive things are
formulating local survival strategies and strong regionalising of
society.
But let’s stop for a while. My main category generating the
idea of the ethno-pop music as produced by a cultural matrix (Merriam
1964: VII) is the experiencing of reality: its living, its
experiencing and the further echo of the two. According to
psychoanalysis, and more specifically to the method of the
contemporary ethno-psychoanalysis, e.g. the one of Andreas Benz,
who treats the problem of surviving (das Überleben) as a main
scientific, practical and strategic issue for the people living
in times of immense and multidimensional changes, the cultures
work out special protecting mechanism for resisting and
overcoming those processes disturbing the balance. According to
Benz the mechanism inherent in the European culture manifests
itself in organised forms of covering, making obscure and
softening the substance of human reality, human nature and
inclination to aggression and conflict generating – forms on
all society levels (Benz 1997:11). I would quote here a
formulation of Georgi Kapriev: “The West-European mankind
does not have a valid language to express its extremes. That is
why it is tabooing them.”4 The problem is (through
the psycho- and ethno-analysis) to get into the troubling reality
– like in an initiation process – discussing it. The
cultural matrix (after Meriam), where I see the present
place of the Bulgarian ethno-pop music, is a matrix of public
conversation, a poly-, dia- or monologue, currently taking place
on different levels, in different forms and under the sign of
various ways of thinking, worldviews, figurative parameters of
imagination. All conversations say one and the same: what happens
with the people right now. The talking discourses are realised
parallelly to each other, they differ in style, but they have the
common theme of confusion over the life today. In this way both
Kultura newspaper and the ethno-pop activities (in their pure
aspect) appear to me as modifications of a giant couch, where the
speakers are talking – in a conflicting manner – being
both analysts and patients. The intellectuals from Kultura
newspaper speak with disgust. The others – “the common
people” – we will talk about them later on. Now, we
talk about those, who hold their pens / type on their PC
keyboards, those, who feel themselves catalysed through such
editions like Kultura newspaper, so that they express their
attitude towards today’s Bulgaria with its rich and poor by
means of the skilled language culture, those, who obey the law
and those, who violate it, with the Bulgarians, Turks and Roma.
“Today, the regular Roma, Bulgarians and Turks are fried in
the same socially red-hot class pan”, Rumen Leonidov says
angrily referring to the anti-Semitic publications. The
number of our declassified countrymen, who have already reached
the bottom, with respect to their everyday-life and being, has
met the critical maximum. Their negative energy also seeks a way
out. The Poet desires “drastic law repression” in order
that “everything can start from the beginning”. Because
“most of the today’s healthy and supposedly normal
Bulgarians watch indifferently how the meaning of their lives
melts away meaninglessly.” The guilty? “The political
riff-raff, that leads us to this ordinary fascism”.5
One of the most stinging and original authors of Kultura, the
architect Pavel Popov, on the occasion of the defeat of our
national team at the 2001 football world cup called the
“we” a “immature, lazy, labile, sly, sentimentally
self-pitying rabble, that hates talent and success above
all in the world.”6 The painter Andrej Lekarski
living in Paris, but having also a studio in Sofia, says to
Kultura: “…my studio was robbed out, two and a half
tons of sculptures were stolen. All of it (product of many years
of labour – R. St.) was melted in only one night to be sold
as kilograms of metal…”7 The text
illustrates the above conclusion of the empty value vault and the
total economisation of consciousness. The desperate words of
Kultura newspaper are also accomplished by the voice of Starshel
(a satiric weekly – translator’s note) with its leader
significantly called The Jolly Catastrophe. Cases of disgrace and
ruin of young and old are figuratively described, the only proper
reaction towards which according to the author is the “total
chalga and belly dance”. Because of the fact that the first
(the life in Bulgaria) is equal to the second (the chalga with
belly dance). 8 (translators’ note: “chalga”
is a term with negative connotations for a music genre
established after 1989 in Bulgaria on the analogy of the Serbian
and Turkish ethno-pop songs.)
In this way the pop-folk /”chalga”/ hit becomes a
symbol of the ruin of all and everything. In a quite provoking
article – an interview of Momchil Titsin with the avant-guards
Boris Serginov and Svilen Stefanov – it is directly stated
that: “In Bulgaria life copies the chalga, life is so banal
and cynical that the way we talk about it (in the non-conventional
action To Be Kicking Culture by Momchil Titsin and Svilen
Stefanov) turns out to be mild and well-mannered despite the
obscene words in the texts… We are decent people, and we are
already fed up with the nation-wide brutalization.”9
There are fears occurring that the comparison between “life”
and “art” is about to result only in chalga. The
Bulgarian blues songs about beer, for example, “maintain the
rhythm of the digestion tract of the individual”, - Svilen
Stefanov says - “This is a kind of a plebeian feast of
the lower body part, of the belly and the genitals. Exactly this
becomes popular in Bulgaria, I would call it hippie-like table
music.”10 How elegant, in my view, the same thing
is expressed by Bachtin when in his book about Rabelais’
works he talks about “those body parts, where this thing is
either open to the outer world or cuts into it …: a wide
open mouth, the genitals, the breasts, the phallus, the fat
belly, the nose…” (Bachtin 1978:40-41).
The film production suffers the most from this “mutra’s
aesthetics” (translator’s note: “mutra”
refers to the social status of an individual, who after being in
wrestling or body building has become a wealthy representative of
a semi-illegal grouping). As an example hereto can serve the
fiercely written texts by the Kultura film editor Genoveva
Dimitrova. She masters a beautiful figurative language and is
keen on criticising our reality, which according to her is
repulsive so that it “can drive you mad, can make you
immigrate or just throw up”. But obviously, the author is
much more angry about the films staring at this reality and
duplicating it. “The Bulgarian silver screen reality is
filled with the smell of cheap brandy – so that it can make
you sick of stink, ugliness, nonsense… The invention of the
film authors ends up in registration. Vulgar narrative…”11
So, it is a double disgust – a disgust both for reality and
for art, which has stepped down too close to the everyday course
of life. Another article depicts again our “mean reality”
and the “mutras, primates and blondes”12,
and a third material repeats it again – so that we gradually
work out the formulation of the “mutra’s wave in the
Bulgarian film”.13 In a conversation with the
play-writer Vladimir Ganov (living in Canada since 1985 – R.
St.) Dimitrova defines also the “chalga aesthetics”, in
which our film production got stuck together with its “getting
stuck in the sump of reality”. The two talking partners
agree that “only choosing mutras as your characters, will
not suffice your film to become a piece of art”. A moral
message is lacking in such cases, the films are “empirical,
too external, and are situated in a kind of a pre-aesthetics.”14
The vulgar narrative duplicating Bulgarian reality of the mid-90-ies
till the present day manifests itself consciously in the
“mobile telephone novels” by the writer Hristo Kalchev
(I refer to the trilogy Neron the Wolf, Caligula the Wild and The
Messalina Cyclus, all three of them published in 1995 and met
with great interest by the public.) According to the literary
critic Simona Yankova “the reader meets the same stories he
reads about every day in the newspaper criminal briefs and in the
yellow press.” The genre “mobile telephone novel”15
is a mass culture product and is not defined as such via
negationis. The author does not define his works as literature,
but as a chronicle of time. Hristo Kalchev: “… somebody
should have the courage to tell them (the people – R. St.)
what was going on in this country…” I have called my
works ‘vulgar novels’, i.e. vulgar circumstances,
vulgar language, vulgar action, vulgar prognoses. Everything
there is vulgar. And I do not know…, if someday a critic
will put those books together to call them “novels.”16
After 7 years the critique still denies to accept such a
literature even as a mass literature calling it “realism and
dirty grey”: “The writer assures you – Milena
Kirova writes – that in this society, among the people you
are living with, everything is dirty, corrupt and disgusting,
that the real colour of life is mud-grey…”Philosophy”
and aesthetics of the cesspool… When reading, you want to
flee from yourself.”17
It is, as if there is no art sphere, which has not been affected
by the explosion of the vulgar lower body part and by the
perceived as repulsive closeness between the course of life and
the art . The mild sorrow of Leon Daniel that “when the way
of watching suffers, the theatre will also suffer”18,
and the astonishment of the electronic music composer Vladimir
Dzhambazov, that feelings expressed in music become
articles of trade19, are enriched mutually in lights
and shades by the paroxysm of fury of another composer –
Dragomir Yosifov, who protests against the intellectual top of
the world of music being the ethno music of the Balkan Horses
type (Balkan Horses is a transnational Balkan ethno-jazz project
with changing performers), and against the official musical
attitude defining “shyly-
vulgarly” the 7/8 measure as the “sign of the Bulgarian”.20
Everything becomes cheaper, everything degrades – “ the
criminals become main characters of the newspaper story” (Georgi
Lozanov)21, the television, when performing well,
works for “making the public stupider”22,
and, when performing poorly, gets down to the “very slime”.
For example, a broadcast of this kind is The Whole King’s
Army, Bulgarian National Television, which is the butt of Ave
Ivanova’s attacks “it is the bottom”. She
concludes: “It collects and sublimates all frustrations of
the culture whirling in “this country”. Undisturbed, in
slippers and worn out training suit, with misty smell of last
night’s drunk and intercourse in the corner, this feacal
culture radiates scenes, small and big screens. It sucks up, it
sucks in, it wants to overcome you…”23 The
following question arises naturally: If the “high” art
and journalism are like this, so what can be the today chalga in
Bulgaria like?
If we may treat the statements of the masters of cultural
analysis and the rhetoric, presently introduced here as
respondents, in the way of a possible psycho-gram of the trauma
resulting from what happens now with the Bulgarian society, we
could assume the following interpretation of the “disgust
with the chalga” in the aspect of theorising. When saying
that “life in Bulgaria duplicates the chalga”, the
authors on the couch of the hypothetical ethno-psycho-analytical
session conduct a t r a n s f e r in a psycho-analytical
sense: the object of their aversion (“the reality, which is
so unbearable that makes you throw up”) is so bad that it
resembles the worst – the pop-folk-hit made by chalga stars
like Kondjo or Azis. But when analysed, the “psycho-gram”
sounds rather like this: the ethno-pop-hit is bad, because it
depicts the state of affairs one-to-one, without the disgust of
the intelligentsia, but “with the sentiment of the losers”
(Ivan Krastev)24. Here we have a typical case of pars
pro toto. Because, if the “mutra’s cinema” “registers”
the repulsive reality, it does it with an additional dose of
disgust splashed onto the screen. Compared to it, the infantile
gay hit of the pop folk singer Asis is innocent in its
shamelessness: it is the realia causing the disgust of the
intellectuals. But as far as they are both the “patient with
the trauma” and “the self-treating doctor”, the
transfer does not stop with the aggressive criticism (“Repulsive
chalga!”), but goes further to an insight, generating the
above mentioned ambivalent attitude of the intellectuals towards
the pop folk. The only nice character, for example, in the
article of Vesselin Vesselinov About the Tomatoes and the
Intellectuals (provoked by the discussion on the article of the
political scientist Evgeni Daynov on the intellectual stratum of
the Bulgarian postmodernists-deconstructivists in their role of
explaining what is happening25), is called a bit
roughly, but with a winking understanding: “the object is a
vulgarian and listens to chalga”. The tomatoes he produces
are no good, but at least he is not a hanger-on like so many
intellectuals.26 When Mitko Novkov has to conclude
that – in the interpretation of Slavi Trifonov’s Ku-Ku-Band
(translator’s note: Slavi Trifonov is the host of a popular
Bulgarian evening TV show) - the pop folk “becomes a
sign of the Bulgarian” and even in the “most
representative Bulgarian music”27, he actually
employs a procedure called by the psychoanalyst Benz emphasising
the lesser evil to keep back the greater one. (Benz has in mind
Freud’s emphasising of the significance of sexuality with
the purpose of kindly keeping back the aggression standing behind
the libido as mainly inherent in the human nature.) (Benz 1997:15)
After the ambivalence of the vision about the “chalga both
as shame and dignity”28, the next issue will
concern its virtual role as sign of the “dominant culture in
Bulgaria”29.
NOTES:
1 P. Kabakchieva, ?.
Zheljazkova, D. Minev. Vav vprjaga na bednostta. Kultura, br. 14,
7 apr. 1995, s. 5. (P. Kabakchieva, M. Zhelyaskova, D. Minev.
Roped in on Poverty. Kultura, issue 14, April 7, 1995).
2 Andrej Rajchev. Srednata klasa
predi deseti. (The Middle Class before the Tenth.) Sega,
September 29, 2002.
3 Marin Bodakov. Sastojanieto na
obshtestvoto. Kultura , br. 35, 4 ??t.2002, s.13; Dimiter
Kamburov. Sastojanie na obshtestvoto i lipsvashtata figura v
kilima. Kultura, br. 40, 8 noemv. 2002, 10-11.(The Condition of
Society. Kultura, issue 35, October 4, 2002, page 13; Dimitar
Kamburov. The Condition of Society and the Missing Figure on the
Carpet. Kultura, issue 40, November 8, 2002, 10-11).
4 Georgi Kapriev. Pismo do Dimitar
Gochev.Kultura, br. 43, 30 noemv. 2001, 7.A Letter to Dimitar
Gochev. Kultura, issue 36, October 19, 2001, page 1.
5 Rumen Leonidov. Protiven do
dokazvane na obratnoto. Kultura, issue 17, 26 April 2002, p. 5 (Rumen
Leonidov. Disgusting till proved the opposite).
6 Pavel Popov. 6 oktomvri. Kultura ,
br. 36, 19 okt. 2001, s. 1. (October 6. Kultura, issue 36,
October 19, 2001, p. 1).
7 Diana Popova. Izkustvoto da se
vgrazhda motoziklet. Razgovor s Andrej Lekarski. Kultura, br. 38,
25 okt. 2002, s.12 (The Art to Build in a Motorcycle.
Conversation with Andrej Lekarski, Kulura, issue 38, October 25,
2002, p.12 ).
8 Krastjo Krastev. Veselata
katastrofa. Starshel, br. 2929, 31 maj 2002, 1-2 (The Jolly
Catastrophe. Starshel, issue 2929, May 31, 2002, 1-2).
9 Ravnodushniat grob na lirizite.
Razgovor na Momchil Titsin s Boris Serginov i Svilen Stefanov.
Literaturen vestnik, 29.11-5.12.2002, s. 7 (The Indifferent Grave
of the Lyricists. Conversation Momchil Titsin with Boris Serginov
i Svilen Stefanov, Literaturen vestnik, November 29-December 5,
2002, p.7).
10 Ibiden.
11 Genoveva Dimitrova. Smrad i yarost.
Kultura, br. 11, 15 mart 2002, s. 5 (Genoveva Dimitrova. Stink
and Fury, Kultura, issue 11, March 15, 2002, p. 5).
12 Genoveva Dimitrova. Krehko
stabilizirane. Kultura, br. 39, 1 noemv. 2002, s. 5 (Genoveva
Dimitrova. Fragile Stabilising. Kultura, issue 39, November 1,
2002, p. 5).
13 Genoveva Dimitrova. No napolovina.
Kultura, br. 45, 6 dek. 2002, s. 5 (Genoveva Dimitrova. But at
the half. Kultura, issue 45, December 6, 2002, p. 5).
14 Genoveva Dimitrova. “Zaminavam
sas svito sartse”. Razgovor s Vladimir Ganev. Kultura, br.
41, 15 noemv. 2002, s. 5 (Genoveva Dimitrova. “I leave with
a Sinking Heart”. Conversation with Vladimir Ganev. Kultura,
issue 41, November 15, 2002, p. 5).
15 The term “mobile telephone
novel” belongs to Simona Yankova.
16 Simona Yankova. Mobifonni romani.
Kultura, br. 51/52, 20 dek. 1996, 9-12 (Mbile Telephone Novels.
Kultura, issue 51/52, December 20, 1996, 9-12).
17 Milena Kirova. Realisam v
mrasnosivo. Kultura, br. 40, 8 noem. 2002, s. 2 (Realism in Dirty-grey,
issue 40, November 8, 200, p. 2 ).
18 “To…za teatara smart
njama”. Intervju s Leon Daniel. Kultura, br. 11, 23 mart
2001, 10-11 (“There…Is no Death for the Theatre”.
Interview with Leon Daniel. Kultura, issue. 11, March 23, 2001,
10-11).
19 Vladimir Dzhambazov. Sartseto
zadalzhava. Kultura, br. 11, 23 mart 2001, s. 7 (The Heart
Obliges. Kultura, issue. 11, March 23, 2001, p. 7).
20 Dragomir Yosifov. 7/8 i shte si…
Kultura, br. 37, 26 okt. 2001, s. 9 (7/8 and you will be…
Kultura, issue 37, October 26, 2001, p. 9).
21 Marin Bodakov. Kritika na bitovia
razkaz. Kultura, br. 44, 29 noem. 2002, s. 8 (Criticism of Every-day
narrative. Kultura, issue 44, November 29, 2002, p. 8).
22 Dimitar Kamburov. Televisiata:
mezhdu vtelenoto tjalo v kanala i vtalenata v bitvi gledka.
Kultura, br. 4, 1 fevr. 2002, 10-11 (Television: Between the
incorporated body in the channel and the view incorporated in
everyday routines. Kulture, issue 4, February 1, 2002, 10-11).
23 Ave Ivanova. Gadosti, bez koito
mozhem. Kultura, br. 46, 13 dek. 2002, s. 5 (Vilenesses We Can Do
Without. Kultura, issue 46, December 13, 2002, p. 5).
24 Marin Bodakov. Sastoyanie na
obstestvoto. Kultura, br. 35, 4 okt. 2002, s. 9 (State of Society.
Kultura, issue 35, October 4, 2002, p. 9)
25 Evgeni Daynov. Shto e
intelektualets i kakvi gi varshi po nashite zemi. Kultura, br. 35,
12 okt. 2001, 6—7 (What Is an Intellectual and What Does He
Do in Our Country. Kultura, issue 35, October 12, 2001, 6-7 ).
26 Vesselin Vesselinov. Za domatite i
intelektualtsite. Kultura, br. 37, 26 okt. 2001, s. 7 (About the
tomatoes and the Intellectuals. Kultura, issue 37, October 26,
2001, p. 7).
27 Mitko Novkov. Opravdanie na
chalgata. Kultura, br. 4, 2 fevr. 2001, s. 3 (Justification of
the Chalga. Kultura, issue 4, February 2, 2001, p. 3).
28 Ibiden.
29 Marin Bodakov. Ot mjastoto.
Kultura, br. 39, 1 noemv. 2002, s. 2 (From the Spot. Kultura,
issue 39, November 1, 2002, p. 2).
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
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Statelova, Rosmari. 1995. Experienced in Bulgaria. Rock, Pop,
Folk 1990-1994. Sofia, Riva.
Statelova, Rosmari. 1999. Studies on Pop Music. Varna:
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Benz, Andreas. 1997. Der Überlebenskünstler. Drei
Inszenierungen zur Überwindung eines Traumas. Hamburg, Eurpäische
Verlaganstalt.
Merriam, Alan P. 1964. The Anthropology of Music.
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