The National Character and the Folklore in the Distorting Mirror of the Bulgarian Animated Cinema Cover Image

Националният характер и фолклорното в кривото огледало на българското анимационно кино
The National Character and the Folklore in the Distorting Mirror of the Bulgarian Animated Cinema

Author(s): Nadezhda Marinchevska
Subject(s): Anthropology, Cultural history, Customs / Folklore, Social history, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Culture and social structure , Nationalism Studies, Film / Cinema / Cinematography
Published by: Институт за етнология и фолклористика с Етнографски музей при БАН
Keywords: cinema;national and cultural identity;

Summary/Abstract: The focus of the article lies on the interpretations of folklore elements in the Bulgarian animated cinema as well as on the rationalization of main features of the Bulgarian national character in the period from the late 1940s to the present days. In the 1960s, the process which has begun with the ideological censorship of the Bulgarian folklore tradition quickly transformed into satirical film model directing its criticism on the national character of the Bulgarian. This model was also based on the nontraditional visual representation of the folklore through the modern black and white drawing and caricature, through the grotesque and the decorative drawing. The next stage of the transformation of fairy and mythological subjects was related to the radical neo-vanguard practices in our animated cinema which compared our tradition to foreign cultures and ideas on a global scale and in wide range – from the direct parallels in art to the psychoanalytical interpretations visualized in surrealistic stylistics. The last 25 years marked a peculiar identity crisis of the Bulgarian artists. The changes after the fall of the Berlin Wall created certain fear in the artists to turn to the rationalization of the national origin and character.

  • Issue Year: 2015
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 532-549
  • Page Count: 19
  • Language: Bulgarian