A two-week workshop "Socialist way of life: social engineering or ideological mirage" started this week, organized by the Institute for Research on the Near Past and Sofia University.
The workshop started by a discussion about the book "Socialist way of life" by prof. Ulf Brunnbauer with participants including Prof. Ivajlo Znepolski, Assoc. Prof. Daniela Koleva, Assoc. Prof. Ivan Elenkov and Assoc. Prof. Mihail Gruev.
Prof. Brunnbauer's research was originally published in German and has recently been translated in Bulgarian. The Austrian scientist's investigation is one of his many in the field and is a big contribution in researching socialism. It gives details about the Bulgarian socialist reality and its relations with the authority and people.
The debate was opened by Prof. Znepolski who expressed his impressions of the book as being a thorough research of the factors of socialism. The book is an attempt for reconstruction of the history of the communist Bulgaria based on unbiased approach of a scientist who is not Bulgarian. The audience tried to answer the question "What was the socialist way of life", with the focus of the workshop on the approaches of investigating the past.
Original by Martina Angelova, abridged