Breaking the Code: Political Control and the Humanities in 1960 s Bulgaria

Certain tendencies in Bulgarian academia in the 1960s are explored as constituting a decisive moment in the emancipation of scientific authority from the intrusion of communist political power. With the focus on aesthetics, the major tenet is that, in the face of repression, specific theoretical approaches and currents of thought emerged that proved effective in dismantling dogma and boosting scientific authority vis-à-vis ideological control. Although open clashes with the repressive machinery of the communist regime certainly played a role in advancing the autonomy of science while on the other hand networks existed that allowed the clashes to be resolved in favor of science, emphasis here is on the deliberate shaping of an academic ethos and the implementation of modes of thinking, theoretical tools, and stances that were resilient to control and demonstrated their superiority to dogma. In 1960s aesthetics, this process involved battles surrounding the dogmatic conceptualization of reflection by Stalinist philosopher Todor Pavlov. A theorization of art as the production of freedom emerged in the course of these battles—a theorization which might, in fact, be crucial for this production and therefore a necessary condition for an otherwise fragile potentiality.