Forbidden Melodies: Bulgarian Collectors of Western Music and the Informal Infrastructures of Cultural Circulation in Late Socialist Bulgaria
Forbidden Melodies: Bulgarian Collectors of Western Music and the Informal Infrastructures of Cultural Circulation in Late Socialist Bulgaria

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the informal circulation of Western popular music in late-socialist Bulgaria, drawing on four oral-history interviews with long-term collectors. The findings show that access to global music was sustained not through official cultural institutions but through dispersed networks of people, practices and technical improvisations that operated despite scarcity, censorship and restricted mobility. Collectors acted as cultural intermediaries: they located and copied recordings, exchanged knowledge, maintained equipment and created listening spaces that supported parallel cultural environments. Rather than representing open dissent, these practices constituted everyday forms of cultural exchange that expanded youth cultural horizons and enabled Western music to be experienced, interpreted and integrated within the socialist context.

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