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April 10, 2019 - Image 13

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Wednesday, April 10, 2019// The Statement
6B

R

ecently, during my 2 a.m. post-
library attempt to fall asleep,
I was scrolling through Twit-
ter and fell upon a video by The Atlantic
titled “Bulgaria: The World’s Fastest-
Shrinking Country.” I clicked, intrigued.
As the child of two Bulgarian immigrants,
I am bilingual and culturally tuned to my
ethnic background. But because I was
born and raised in the United States, I am
always curious to learn and understand
more about Bulgaria.
While I gossip in Bulgarian with my
grandmother over обяд (lunch), cook
леща (lentils) in my messy college
house kitchen and scour Spotify for any
new album releases by Bulgarian show-
man and musician Slavi Trifonov, I also
feel misplaced whenever I return to visit
family in Sofia. I sense this divide, daily:
In my core, I am an American girl, but I
am also different because of the different
rituals I have practiced for my whole life.
That’s why, after 20 minutes of watch-
ing The Atlantic’s reportage on Altimir,
a rural Bulgarian village, I was both irri-
tated and confused. The title of the piece
implied that it would explore the rising
rates of emigration from Bulgaria as a
whole, and the description noted that
“that the story of globalization is often
told from the perspective of those who
leave” and boasted it would show what life
was like for those who remained. Yet the
entire 17-minute piece focused on one vil-
lage, one man and one generalized story.
The coverage was no more than a sim-
plified, one-dimensional pity piece made
for cinematographic effect rather than
accurate, important journalism. It lacked
narration as it made sweeping dramatic
shots over dilapidated buildings and fac-
tories. It faulted any historical context
as it paused on old Soviet billboards. It
showed clips of the elders reminiscing on
Communism without describing exactly
how such political ideology functioned.
It made no effort to explain the pro-
found issues in the country while follow-
ing an old man, Yordan, as he biked about
the town, with camera shots that seemed
to focus more on aesthetic angles than
substantive interviews and dialogue. And
judging by the title of their documentary,
the piece unfairly synthesized every dif-
ferent Bulgarian region, dialect, culture
and community into one rural town, into
one story. How could this be representa-
tive of an entire country?
This form of reporting is nothing new,
though. From films to newspapers to
literature, Western publications love
to romanticize countries they deem as
lesser and pitiful. For example, in what
is supposed to be an informative video, a
travel channel’s YouTube pegs Bulgaria

as a good destination for “tripsters” to go
to when in search of the “bleakest, most
obscure regions of the planet.”
It seems to me that the Western media
maintains a certain allure for the for-
merly oppressed, for places where people
had to adapt in the most curious of ways
to survive. In the famous book Franco-
Czech author Milan Kundera, “The
Unbearable Lightness of Being,” the nar-
rator muses on how Western Europeans
find the “spirit dissidents show during
repression and revolution” attractive.
The Swiss character Franz regards the
regime and rebellion in Czechoslovakia
with admiration and jealousy, deeming
the drama a representation of “real life”
— one that he yearns to experience. This
ultimately makes his Slovakian lover,
Sabina, hate him — she cannot believe he
views oppression as anything other than
ugly and traumatic.
The reality of oppression and revo-
lution is not as pretty as Franz or The
Atlantic tries to make it out to be. My
parents often reminisce on their lives in
the Eastern Bloc with creased eyes and
furrowed brows, musing on the limits of
opportunity under the suffocating regime
with both disdain and nostalgia. Their
feelings toward their home country are
conflicted, but are theirs to make.
My mother sees no romance in my
grandmother’s cancer, an illness my
mother believes was partially brought
on by the constant state of anxiety and
oppression the regime produced. My
father does not tell of beauty when he
reflects on empty grocery stores and how
he smuggled CDs through the airport to
give to friends.
But they do see hope in the birth of a new
generation. They do encourage my desire
to live in Sofia and cheer on the activists
we read about on local news sites. That’s
why they bring me back almost every
year: to see joy in the rising sun of a new
Bulgaria, the only one I know and the one
The Atlantic can’t seem to see.
The Bulgaria my parents left was one
of economic and political instability fol-
lowing the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Through the United States diversity visa
program, they had an opportunity for a
more promising future and took it. The
Bulgaria I got to know came much later,
when the country was achieving fiscal
stability and corruption was relatively
low. I remember spending the equivalent
of a dime for popcorn in Sofia’s South
Park and hiking the Vitosha mountain
for free. I smile at the memory of picking
figs off of trees with my grandmother and
exploring rivers by my grandfather’s villa.
I laugh at the time I went to Bulgaria as
a teenager, excited by the $1 a shot deals

at each bar lining the coast of the Black
Sea. These are images I fail to see repre-
sented in the media, perhaps because they
are too reminiscent of the more elite and
expensive life on the Western side of the
continent.
While my memories of summers in
Bulgaria are little sunbeams on the land-
scape of my Eastern European heritage,
they are also admittedly immature and
slightly uninformed. The previously sta-
bilizing economy is shaky once again, and
issues of corruptionare increasingly pres-
ent. But there is a difference between rec-
ognizing a country’s troublesome history
and present lack of leadership and label-
ing it as a failed state. In our globalizing
world, there is a gap between countries
with years of independence and stabil-
ity, and those who are playing catch-up
to reach what is accepted as a first-world
standard of living.
My issue with reporting on former
Communist countries is they narrow the
diversity and trauma of the Balkan region
into one politically convenient image: a
cautionary tale of what happens in coun-
tries without capitalism. They present a
stereotype of a backward place where the
average citizen is a villager who does no
more than bike about their deserted town
and drink ракия (rakia, or fruit brandy)
in a cottage with other elders.
As someone born and raised in the
United States, I acknowledge that my
understanding of Bulgaria and the Bal-
kan region is limited and biased. How-
ever, through this cultural duality of my
upbringing and frequent visits to Bulgar-
ia, I have a more refined and holistic view
on what life there actually looks like. This
is why I stress the importance of con-
suming films, books or even music about
Eastern Europe by Eastern Europeans.

Not only are they artful and entertain-
ing, but they present reality in an honest
and effective way.
Storytelling is an interesting craft, one
of great importance in our globalizing
world.
As someone who wants to learn more
about where I am from, I am frequently
disappointed by the biased representa-
tions of Bulgaria and Eastern Europe that
I find when searching the web. I believe
storytellers have a responsibility to bal-
ance their portrayal of political upheaval
and economic instability with the rawest,
sweetest and most tragic of memories.
For me, these deep memories and con-
nections manifest in the simplest of ways.
I have learned to understand my Bulgari-
an identity through learning how to make
пълнени чушки (stuffed bell pepper)
with my mom, celebrating the holiday
Baba Marta in the springtime and playing
soccer with all of my male relatives.
So I urge anyone, “tripster” or true
curious traveler, to search beyond the
Western media to create their own image
of these less known but still culturally
rich places. As rates of emigration rise,
and subsequent opinions are formulated
on why this is, I suggest informing your-
self comprehensively. There are infinite
corners to a country — nooks where num-
bers cannot exist. There are stories that
cannot be told through percentages and
data. Sometimes, the sun and tradition
are the strongest truth.

BY MAGDALENA MIHAYLOVA, EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
Truth through text

ILLUSTRATION BY LAUREN KUZEE

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