A Guided Tour Through the Museum of Communism by Slavenka Drakulic Page A

strange way. She had the power to do more bad things than she did. That is why I like the idea that she did not die of poison (which is only one of the many versions of her death), but rather turned into a small, fragile green frog—into a little animal, that is,” I told Evelina. “Ah, yes, how very typical of Bulgaria! Unlike in other fairy tales, in this one the princess turns into a frog and not the other way around. I like your interpretation! ʺ exclaimed Evelina, not really knowing much about the said Princess Lyudmila.
    But she really did behave more like a princess than a party bureaucrat. Regardless of whether she was allowed (or not) to behave differently because she was protected by her omnipotent father, the truth is that she was educated, intelligent, and ambitious. Bringing a whiff of modernity to Bulgarian art and culture was a very positive attempt.
    Even if her ideas were often very, very strange.
    Take her “national program for aesthetic education,” as part of the “construction of a mature socialist society.” As much as she tried to put it into practice, her directions were vague and abstract. No wonder, because it was not an easy task to link “development according to the law of the spiral” with development according to the dominating laws of economic determination in Marxism: The material world represents the “base,” while the “fluffy” stuff of culture, beauty, and spirit belongs to the “superstructure.”
    Or take her rhetoric. Her rhetoric was delightfully fuzzy and deceptive. Here is a quote from a 1980 analysis by the journalist Jordan Kerov, which Evelina found somewhere for me (I think she called the place the “Internet,” but I don’t know where it is situated):
    Lyudmila Zhivkova’s opening speech at the 1979 “Banner of Peace Assembly” in Sofia, for example, contained the following words or concepts taken directly from the oriental mystics or from their occidental proponents: harmony, harmonious development of man, and perfection, etc. (occur 33 times); light, celestial light, brightness, etc. (35 times); the Universe, the Planet, the Galaxy, Endlessness, the Infinite, the Eternal, Nature etc. (33 times); Beauty, Truth, etc. (38 times); Wisdom (19 times); creative powers, dreams, aspirations, etc. (36 times); and Spirit, vibrations, energy, blessing, etc. (16 times).
    Lyudmila Zhivkova also uses phrases like the “effulgent purposefulness,” the “sonorous vibration of the seven-stage harmony of the Eternal,” and the “vibrations of the electrons.” All this she managed to put together in a speech lasting only about 15 minutes and, which is the most amazing, addressed to children of up to 14 years of age.
    Even if I try very hard, I just can’t imagine Madame Ceausescu or Madame Hoxha giving a similar speech in front of children or workers or Communist Party members or the Politburo. Many compared her to the powerful wives of other leaders, like Nexhmije, the wife of the first secretary of Albania, Enver Hoxha. Or like the notorious Elena Ceausescu. Both of them had power but didn’t even attempt to do anything good with it. Unlike women in positions of power acquired through their relationships with dictators, Lyudmila did something good, at least in one particular field. In spite of her folly, her reign as the minister of culture is nevertheless considered the golden age of art and culture in Bulgaria. Artists traveled abroad to study, and abstract art was exhibited in galleries—unheard-of in the other satellite states. Under her reign, a national palace of culture was constructed and the National Gallery of Art was replenished with formidable works of art. The exhibition “Thracian Gold Treasures from Bulgaria” traveled to twenty-five cities around the world, and many countries also saw the fine exhibition of Orthodox icons. Last but not least, a big