The Soviet Union: Critical and Unmasking Aspects (Observations on Travel Writings from the 1920s And 1930s)

The paper focuses on the Soviet Union as presented in Bulgarian interwar travelogues – Nikola Iliev’s Kakvo Vidyah v Savetska Rusia: Istinski Razkaz (What I Saw in Soviet Russia: A True Story) (1921), P. Stoyanov’s Istinata za Ruskia Bolshevizam (The Truth about Russian Bolshevism) (1921), Ivan Abadzhiev’s Prez Velikite Karvavi Dni na Rusia (During the Great Bloody Days of Russia) (1929), and Boris Dimitrov’s Na Iztok – Vsichko Novo! S.S.S.R.: Vpechatlenia i Razmishlenia (To the East – Everything New! U.S.S.R.: Impressions and Reflections) (1941). The country is depicted in these travelogues as a totalitarian “hell” – an enclosed society isolated from the outside world. Moreover, it is governed by means of repression and terror, with the intention to subjugate not only the bodies, but also the minds of its people. The Soviet citizens described by those Bulgarian writers not only find themselves deprived of basic human rights and civil liberties, but also their existence is reduced to the level of survival amid everyday restrictions and poverty, as well as fear of an omnipresent and threatening police aggression.