Интелектуалецът във властта – взаимни прочити на събитията след 1989 г.
The Intellectual in Power: Reciprocal Interpretations of Events after 1989 (V. Havel, Zh. Zhelev, B. Dimitrova, A. Michnik)

Summary/Abstract: The article examines the place and the social roles assigned to intellectuals following the events of the autumn of 1989 in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Poland. The central questions are, among others, why exactly were they the ones expected to shape political life; did they manage to observe political processes objectively, since they were also active participants in them; how did they perceive their own place in politics; which events did they comment on, etc. Investigated as emblematic examples of intellectuals in power are V. Havel, Zh. Zhelev, B. Dimitrova and A. Michnik. The analysis focuses primarily on some of their interviews, public speeches, discussion contributions and essays, all dating from the first decade of democracy. A number of statements and assessments of the political crises in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia before and after 1989 reveal a sense of community. At the same time, it is notable that Zhelev and Dimitrova comment on the recent past and the present in the Central European countries much more frequently than Havel and Michnik do on events in Bulgaria. The article develops the argument that the overlap in the analyzed authors’ perceptions is due as much on their similar experience of totalitarianism as on the fact that even before entering politics, they had been reading each other’s works, both literally and figuratively.

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