In Post-Socialist Bulgaria

WHY PEOPLE DON’T DIE ‘NATURALLY’ ANY MORE: CHANGING RELATIONS BETWEEN ‘THE INDIVIDUAL’ AND ‘THE STATE’ IN POST-SOCIALIST BULGARIA

Deema Kaneff Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle

This article explores the theme of death as a means of illuminating the changing relationship between ‘the individual’ and ‘the state’ in the context of post-socialist Bulgaria. Previ- ous research carried out on rituals and socialist society indicates a close connection between state ideology and the socially constructed ‘natural’ order – an order partly reproduced through engagement in state-sponsored life-cycle rituals, such as funerals. By focusing on the way in which funerals are presently carried out, and more speciﬁcally on the way in which villagers talk about death, I suggest that new discourse reveals important changes: a reordering of the relationship between ‘the individual’ and the socially constructed ‘natural’ order. The state is no longer such a strong mediating force in this relationship. Post- socialist reform, therefore, involves more than ‘just’ political and economic change; it represents a more general breakdown in the total set of relations that constituted the socialist world.

I recall an autumn day in September 1996, when Milka came over to speak with myself and Maria, the woman with whom I live in the village of Talpa, north central Bulgaria.1 As neighbours, we frequently snatched brief conversations during daily routine household chores. On this occasion Milka was carrying a bunch of short-stemmed red roses. She had come to seek our approval – it was her daughter Atanaska’s thirtieth birthday; she could not easily travel to the nearest town to buy a present; did we think the roses and some money would be an appropriate present? Yes, we did. As Maria pointed out, Atanaska lives in Sofia and could easily find something nice to buy for herself with the money. Milka did not stay long. Atanaska’s two children – who were spending the summer school holidays with their grandparents – could not be left alone for long. Milka breathed a sigh of relief at the knowledge that Atanaska was arriving that very day to take her two exhaust- ing children back to Sofia for the new school year. Atanaska, however, did not arrive in Talpa that day. Nor did she arrive that evening. But early the following morning Milka and her husband Anton were roused by two policemen, informing them that Atanaska had been killed in an accident. The crash had taken place only 60km from Talpa; her car had veered off the main Sofia-Varna highway, ended up in a deep ditch,

© Royal Anthropological Institute 2002. J. Roy. anthrop. Inst. (N.S.) 8, 89-105 90 DEEMA KANEFF and exploded into flames. Atanaska’s body was so badly burnt that the police had had to identify her remains through the car registration. This led them to her partner in Sofia, who in turn directed them to Talpa. The funeral took place the following day and in many ways did not differ from others that I have witnessed in Talpa.2 But whereas the ritualized practices surrounding death and funerals have not changed in any significant way since 1989, the way in which people speak about death – the way they explain it to themselves – has altered quite dramatically. At the broadest level, this article takes up the theme of death as a way of exploring the changing relationship between the individual and the post-socialist state. In many societies death practices are seen as a means of reasserting or legitimating the social order (Bloch & Parry 1982: 6, 41). In contemporary Western countries the situation differs somewhat – individual deaths are not a challenge to social continuity because they are treated as unique and unrepeatable events (Bloch & Parry 1982: 15). Below, I examine a case which I believe is specific to post-socialist states. During socialism the state moved to ‘mediate’ between the individual and the ‘natural/social’ order. As an organizing apparatus, it successfully took control in defining the ‘natural’ and ‘social’ orders, a goal achieved partly through the determination of life- cycle practices. Funeral rituals were an opportunity for individuals/commu- nities to negotiate their relationship with the state: support for the social order was demonstrated through participation in socialist rituals and, in return, citizens received protection from the state in terms of welfare, housing, education, and so on. Once of central importance, the relationship between individual and state is now under dramatic renegotiation. Changes in the way death is understood and discussed are one means of gaining an insight into the ways in which individuals are experiencing loss and uncertainty following the demise of the encompassing socialist state. I develop this line of enquiry by focusing on the newly emerging discourse at present-day funerals, contrasting this with the formal eulogy which constituted the most important verbal practice during the socialist period, and which is still carried out today. Contrasting forms of funeral discourse – official and informal – provide an insight into how views of death are being transformed in a post-socialist context. A discussion about the nature of language during the socialist period provides a starting-point for identifying the present shifts in local discourse. Given the highly politicized nature of language during socialism and its particular ideological importance, conversations about death, I suggest, have broader significance, illuminating the ways in which individuals struggle to make sense of their new life circumstances, including their changing relationship to the state.

The politicization of language Socialist language was highly politicized.3 Indeed, control over language was a vital characteristic of state socialism (Verdery 1991: 430). For a party for which primary concerns were to transform consciousness, craft a ‘new man’, and create a Communist society, influence over language was particularly DEEMA KANEFF 91 important.The Communist party made every effort ‘to control reality by cir- cumscribing the ways it can be discussed’ (Verdery 1991: 431). That is, since it is through language that reality is understood, discussed, engaged in, and known, control over language was of fundamental importance in any attempt to transform understandings about the socially constructed world and the nature of humanity. Language was a crucial means by which socialist leaders hoped to transform consciousness, thereby determining the ways in which the economic, social, and political order were experienced and known. Such a task involved a high level of organization and deliberate action in order to realize correct human relations in all realms of socialist life – from agricultural production to artistic fashions. In order to achieve this goal, plans from the administrative centre filtered all the way down the hierarchy to the villages, via media – TV, radio, newspapers – and as directives, letters, and other publications. This ensured their wide dissemination. Various village organizations met to discuss issues of the day, relying heavily on official publications. In other words language – both spoken and written – was a crucial vehicle through which the goals of the state were pursued. In attempting to create an ‘authorized language’, that is, a state-approved way of talking about and therefore conceptualizing the world, all language became politicized – a contested domain of social life which was shaped by power relations. Examples of the extent to which language was subject to state control can be taken from any of the east European countries.Verdery (1991: 431), for example, writes that in the 1980s the words that could not be used in Romanian official publications were those that served as reminders of the hard conditions of the time. Provocative words included ‘coffee’ and ‘meat’ (because they were impossible to find), and ‘cold’ and ‘dark’ (which reflected the conditions in people’s apartments). She also talks about a ‘second economy’ for cultural production – such as underground publishing houses (1991). The consequences of politicizing language were twofold. First, both informal discourse and non-verbal communication became two important forms of resistance. Ambiguity in the meaning of various visual symbols and in alternative forms of discourse (poetry and songs, for example: Kligman 1983) were expressions of opposition to the state. Strengthening control over language – in formal, public sites – served to clarify the domain of opposition. In Talpa during the socialist period, verbal expressions of death were restricted to those that fell within the limits of state approval – factual accounts which were secular, and reinforced state views about nature and death.Views that diverged from those of the state were communicated in alternative ways – through non-verbal practices. In fact, it was precisely because language was so politicized that non-participation in events and pertinent silences became such powerful modes of expression. The second consequence of politicizing language was that the state sought not only to control the producers of discourse – for example, journalists, writers, intellectuals – but also strove to keep language under constant surveillance. Bourdieu does not give any particular attention to socialist countries in his work on the importance of language and writing in society. But some of the points that he makes appear germane, given the central position of language in socialist states. Bourdieu reminds us that the more dangerous a situation is, 92 DEEMA KANEFF the more a practice tends to be codified. The examples he gives are the language of diplomacy in official situations, or the case of marriage between distant tribes when codified behaviour is especially important (1990: 78). I would suggest that Bourdieu’s work is particularly relevant to our understanding of socialist societies – with implications for the post-socialist present – because of the uncertainty and ambiguity of everyday life (be it daily battles for resources or political instability), which in turn has given exaggerated importance to codified practice. Official socialist language fits well into Bourdieu’s conditions for codification: it attempted to normalize practices, which in part implied objectifica- tion through writing. Further, the emphasis was on the precluding of multiple meanings: one meaning only was intended. To codify is to banish the effect of vagueness, indeterminacy, and ambiguity by drawing clear boundaries and establishing an explicit normativity, structure, or law. (Codification was therefore, in Foucaultian terms, a form of disciplining.) Official language was often marked off by special qualities, for instance by being highly rhetorical, or saturated with figures of speech and rigorously structured slogans. Public meetings, where there were certain ways to start and end speeches, certain formulas for the speech, as well as appropriate ways to behave during the proceedings, were a good example of this. The funeral eulogies that I discuss below are another example.The imposition of strict ways of using key words and phrases allowed the state not only to impress its political agenda, but also to monitor all deviations. Such control over language is viewed differently by various writers. Gross and Dimitrova, for example, complain that the changes which the socialist state imposed on language made it no longer reflect or represent reality. And this in turn they see as destroying language. For example, Gross notes that language was ‘spoiled under totalitarianism and with it the possibility … of communication’ (1988: 236). Thus it ‘constitutes the perfect fulfilment of the totalitarian strategy of social control: it is in the “destruction” of language that, literally, the destruction of the public domain takes place, because language is the public domain …’ (Gross 1988: 237).4 However, rigidity in public expression and attempted control over language use are features which others view differently.Verdery sees in this situation a valuable means of exploring the relationship between language and state ideology, more specifically, the state control of language for purposes of ideological production (1991: 430). Indeed, understanding this relationship between language and state ideology enables us to gain an insight into state socialism and its aftermath from a more satisfactory starting-point. In order to explore this relationship further, the insights of Scott (1990) and Humphrey (1994) are particularly valuable. As the official discourse about death, eulogies can be viewed as ‘public transcripts’ (Scott 1990). However, Humphrey is correct to point out the very different case of socialism from those instances with which Scott is concerned (class and colonial situations) since hidden transcripts – and, I would add, public transcripts to a lesser degree – were a common resource which everyone could and did partici- pate in producing and reproducing (Humphrey 1994: 23). In the case of official discourses such as funeral eulogies it was officials who wrote the text to a standard formula, but they did so in consultation with the deceased’s DEEMA KANEFF 93 family. Thus even these public transcripts could be ‘evocative’ in terms of eliciting particular interpretations beyond the surface. Such transcripts were, however, significantly less ambiguous than other texts, since they usually suggested meanings that reinforced state views about death. During the socialist period, at least in Talpa, there were few evocative transcripts about death that were expressed through language apart from the officially sponsored eulogies. Evocative transcripts were usually confined to non-verbal forms of commentary about death, most notably in the form of gestures and the practice of particular customs that were independent of verbal explanation (Kaneff, forthcoming). Post-socialist discourse surrounding death – especially those deaths that are seen as unnatural because they defy the ‘natural’, socially constructed order – represents what I view as an expansion of evocative transcripts into the verbal domain, a phenomenon that goes hand-in-hand with the state relinquishing its monopolistic control over language. Transcripts are ‘evocative’ precisely because they are ‘intended to elicit … a particular interpretation beyond the surface meaning’ (Humphrey 1994: 23); they operated openly as a common resource that is remembered, repeated, and interpreted (Humphrey 1994: 26), yet distinct from official discourse (Humphrey 1994: 23).The stories that sur- rounded Atanaska’s death may be viewed in such terms: publicly circulated transcripts in a domain that remains distinct from – yet in ‘dialogue’ with – that of the official eulogy.They imply much about new forms of corruption, the present nature of the Bulgarian state and positions of the individual with respect to it. Since language was one of the most important dimensions of state-sponsored rituals/celebrations,5 such new ways of talking about death also reveal much about the changing relation between language and the state, and the consequences that this has for the way in which (individual) social worlds are being reordered.

Background on funerals During the socialist period, funerals and other life-cycle events were targeted by the state in an attempt to reorient people away from practices located in churches and beliefs heavily reliant on religion, to secular events that empha- sized the importance of the person’s contribution to society. Binns (1979; 1980) gives a fascinating account of how the Soviet authorities invented secular funeral ceremonies in the 1920s as part of a wider push to develop the secular state.The newly designed ceremonies replaced church services conducted by priests with music, processions, and speeches at the grave (see also Lane 1981). I have no recent statistics, but by the early 1970s about 70 per cent of all funerals were celebrated in this secular way in some of the republics (Binns 1980: 180; for a more recent but impressionistic account, see Merridale 2000).While the response across the Soviet republics appears mixed, indications suggest less public support for secular funerals than for other life- cycle rituals such as weddings (Binns 1979; 1980; Lane 1981). My research data indicate that the popularity of secular funerals was greater in Bulgaria than in the former Soviet Union. Of course, the extent to which such funerals were adopted in Bulgaria varied in different localities,6 but in 94 DEEMA KANEFF villages like Talpa which had a long tradition of pro-socialist activity they were a spectacular success.7 In fact in Talpa the first priest-free funerals were carried out in 1957, and since the death of the village priest in the mid 1970s there have been no priest-led funerals. Since 1989, to my knowledge, only a very small number of families have requested the attendance of a priest, but in such cases, his role is restricted to the household where, I am told, he reads a prayer for the deceased. (I have not witnessed such an occasion.) The village church remains unused. Such funerals are thus both religious and secular; a priest per- forms the appropriate rituals at home and a representative of the state reads a eulogy to an audience in the public village square. Since the socialist period, funerals with priests officiating have contined to be unpopular, and the majority are conducted without a religious representative. Furthermore, the division between those parts of the funeral controlled by the state and those that are under private control also remains unchanged. The spatial location of the funeral both in the home and the main village square continues to reflect such dual influences. In villages and towns, family and friends prepare the body for burial (this happened in Atanaska’s case, too) and burial usually takes place within 24 hours of death. It is in the home that there is much scope for private input into the funeral; here the guests place flowers, and sometimes food and coins, in the coffin and say their final farewells to the deceased. Mourners are offered food – including pita bread and red wine.8 In the homes of the deceased who had religious sympathies, candles are lit and elderly mourners often cross themselves when entering the room, and place food in the coffin. During socialist times, the funerals of Communist party members could be distin- guished by the lack of candles placed around the body. If food was set in the coffin, it was done more surreptitiously.Today there are still such small varia- tions in the way in which funerals are conducted, indicating significant differences of ideology between villagers for whom religion still plays a part in their world view and those with more secular leanings. At an appointed time – usually early afternoon – the procession of wreath-carriers, coffin-bearer (a tractor pulling a trailer carrying the coffin), mourners, and musicians (who follow the procession playing funeral marches) leave the home of the deceased and make their way to the village square where a eulogy is read by a prominent village figure such as a teacher or clerk to the mayor.This part of the funeral represents the state’s involvement in the burial process. The eulogy is a biography of the deceased. It presents an ‘account’ of the deceased’s life, determining the individual’s worth in terms of the contribution s/he had made to society – be it through his/her profes- sional life (for example, work in the agricultural co-operative), his/her family life, or in terms of the political and public contributions s/he made to society. There are some differences between the eulogies of the socialist and post- socialist eras; for example, in the latter case socialist rhetoric has been toned down, but the eulogy remains non-religious and emphasizes that death can be understood as a natural and normal part of life, not a mystical or religious event (see below). The procession then makes its way to the cemetery where, if the deceased is a prominent community figure or if his/her death is particularly tragic, a DEEMA KANEFF 95 second shorter eulogy is read. Family pay their final respects to the deceased before the lid is placed on the coffin and it is lowered into the ground. Afterwards, the mourners are invited to the village tavern. Normally a meeting- and drinking-place, the tavern has a large kitchen (of the type found in restaurants). It is hired for the day by the family of the deceased who, with the help of neighbours and friends, prepare a meal – lamb stew and rice – for the mourners returning from the cemetery.

Atanaska’s funeral As noted above, in many respects Atanaska’s funeral did not differ from most others that I have witnessed. Her burial took place in Nekilva, where she had been raised, rather than at her grandparents’ home in the village of Talpa. It was a secular event, conducted without a priest. One difference was that the coffin was never opened – her body being so badly burnt that the family decided it was better for people to remember her as she had been.Thus, while the body of Atanaska was still brought home, a large framed photograph of the deceased was positioned at the head of the coffin. Flowers were laid on the coffin lid rather than inside. But in every other sense the funeral proceedings took place as normal. The entire incident of Atanaska’s death was shrouded in tragedy – she died on her thirtieth birthday and left behind two young children (aged 3 and 5 years). Her situation was particularly complicated because she had been married and divorced four times. Her present partner was not the father of the children and there was much bad blood between the biological father and her parents. Already at the funeral there was talk that Atanaska’s parents were prepared to go to court in order to obtain custody of the children. The striking feature about the funeral was the stories that circulated at the time. These stories covered all aspects of Atanaska’s death – the manner in which she died, the gruesome bodily remains left after the fire, the fate of her two children and of her current partner who was terminally ill. However, one story concerning the death of Atanaska was quite different from the other secular and ‘factual’ accounts. It focused on personal biographical information that was not addressed in the formal eulogy. On the day of the funeral, having removed myself from the room containing the coffin and mourners, I stood in the corridor with Maria (who as a close family friend had come to help Atanaska’s family) and Kina, a friend and work colleague of Atanaska’s parents. In recalling her friend’s life, Kina remembered that Atanaska had been pregnant in 1988. She questioned Maria about this: surely Atanaska’s two boys were too young for her to have been pregnant with either of them? Maria responded, in a lowered voice, that Atanaska had indeed been pregnant on a third occasion but that the child had died soon after birth. She then related events that she had learnt only the previous night from Atanaska’s mother, as they cleaned out the room in preparation for the arrival of the coffin. Milka confided that Atanaska had gone to a fortune-teller a few weeks before her death and that the fortune-teller had told her that she had three children. Atanaska corrected the fortune-teller, saying that she had two not 96 DEEMA KANEFF three children. The fortune-teller persisted, insisting that her first child had been a girl. She then continued to explain to Atanaska that this child was not, as Atanaska believed, dead. Rather, she was alive and attending the very school (in Sofia) in which Atanaska had recently enrolled her eldest son. Given the accuracy of the fortune-teller’s knowledge concerning the existence of a first pregnancy and the sex of the baby, Atanaska began to doubt the story given her by the doctors after her first childbirth. She had never seen the baby, which was taken away from her immediately after the birth. At the time the doctors in attendance told her that the baby had such severe medical prob- lems that she would not live; they blamed the effects of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. A few days later, she was told the baby had died. Some eight years later, in the final weeks before her death, the fortune-teller’s information had made Atanaska suspicious. She contacted a friend of a friend who worked at the hospital where she had given birth. With some effort Atanaska managed to get access to the archives and search through hospital records. Her suspicions were fuelled when she found two documents, one a death certificate for her daughter and another a birth certificate for a girl with the identical first name that she had given her ‘deceased’ baby and dated the same day as the death certificate. Some days later Atanaska was approached by two security guards working privately for a wealthy (Bulgarian) family. They warned her that if she did not drop the investigations she would be in grave danger. Milka told Maria that Atanaska had refused to pay attention to the warning and was determined to continue with her investigations. In relaying this story, Maria did not need to draw the obvious conclusion that we all made – Atanaska’s death had not been accidental. The story that Milka told Maria, and which Maria in turn relayed to Kina and me, was by no means hard to believe. There had been – as Kina pointed out afterwards – a number of stories in the newspapers over the past few years exposing illegal rackets involving babies being sold to wealthy Bulgarians and also to buyers in Western Europe. A few days after the death, I visited Irina and Kolyo, friends living in Sofia. Irina’s parental home adjoins Atanaska’s family house in Talpa.The Sofian couple spend a large part of the year in Talpa, main- taining the garden over the summer months.They are close friends of Atanaska’s family and the day before her fatal car accident, Atanaska had visited Irina at her Sofia apartment. Deeply upset by her death, Irina was also a participant in the reproduction of the fortune-teller story: she told me the tale before I had had the opportunity to inform her that I already knew it. It was clear that the incident had raised questions for the Sofians, too. Kolyo had worked as a high- level official in the police force with strong connections to the internal min- istry during socialist times. As such, he still had good connections with police authorities everywhere in Bulgaria. Following Atanaska’s death, he visited the crash site and spoke to the policemen who had investigated the accident.They told him that there were no suspicious circumstances and that a majority of the Skodas of the model driven by Atanaska burst into flames on impact because of the design – its engine and fuel tank were both located at the back of the car. But other villagers who visited the site point out that the road was in good condition and had no dangerous curves or blind spots. How then could the accident be explained, except possibly that another car had forced Atanaska’s off the road? Indeed, the skid marks on the road suggested that her car had DEEMA KANEFF 97 breaked to avoid an obstacle. This latter interpretation is one that Maria and others still favour to this day. It is unlikely that we will ever know whether Atanaska’s death was accidental or not. Nor is it my intention to pursue this issue further or to suggest what the ‘truth’ might be. Rather, I wish to focus on the story, and I should add that various versions reached me in the weeks following Atanaska’s death, via different people. My concern here is with what the story may tell us about changing relations between the individual and the state in the post-socialist context.

The ‘natural’ order In Talpa, death is viewed as part of the ‘natural’ order. Thus the death of an elderly person is relatively unproblematic; a pensioner has lived out his/her life fulfilling the social expectations of marriage and having children. Dying is simply the next step in the life cycle. This view is reflected in the way people talk about death – there is a Bulgarian phrase,‘everyone in their turn’, which points to a certain ‘order’ and ‘normality’ associated with death. At the correct time, death is appropriate and accepted with fatalistic resignation; ‘as fate brings’ and ‘whatever is written’ are two frequently used sayings when discussing death. At the funeral of an elderly person, Bulgarians say,‘You don’t weep for an old person’, implying that the death of the elderly is not such a tragic event. As long as death occurs ‘in-phase’, in its proper time, it appears relatively ‘unproblematic’. The ‘normalness’ of such deaths is reflected during the burial ceremony, where there is little discussion surrounding the occasion. Some comments always focus on the circumstances of death, but few demand more than passing attention. Grieving occurs in an atmosphere of quiet resignation and most deaths are not viewed as particularly disturbing. Nor is a particular death the centre of discussion for weeks or longer after burial. This is true for both the socialist and post-socialist periods. The socialist eulogies, written and presented by state representatives in public sites, reflected the state’s view of death. In these short biographies of the deceased, death was ‘normalized’ as part of a natural system. As I have argued elsewhere, the eulogy reflected officially sponsored state views about death and nature.9 Death was represented as a natural and irreversible law that could not be avoided: ‘Everything that is born, dies’ is a common phrase used in the eulogies.While death was an inescapable fact, human efforts to control nature through increasing knowledge and the use of technology gave humanity the ability to influence natural forces. Nature was seen to be understood through knowledge, which was ‘controlled’ in turn by the state through its organizations – such as the educational system and medical practices.Thus, it was the state that acted as the mediator between humans and nature. The natural order was presented as increasingly moving under state influence through institutions whose role it was to exercise control over nature through knowledge gained about it. In this respect nature was a rational system, part of a set of laws that could be discovered through scientific endeavour that gave future hope for greater 98 DEEMA KANEFF human control. Not only death, but other life-cycle events – including birth and marriage – were also understood as part of a ‘natural’ order that was increasingly coming under the authority of the state.An extract from a funeral eulogy from 1965 clearly indicates the ‘proper’ and orderly nature of death:

Death is a sure thing, the hour is unknown. Everything that is born, dies. Whoever is born grows, succeeds, grows old, and dies.That is the unchanging law of nature.There is nothing better than nature, but there is nothing worse either. Nature gives birth, guards, destroys, kills; matter goes from one form to another. Knowledge uncovers and makes use of the laws of nature.10

The eulogies frequently extol the virtues of medical science as providing hope to humanity in its battle to stave off natural processes.The biographies of those chronically ill often mention the role of the medical profession in battling – against nature – to try and save the person’s life. Such a view of death is still advocated in present eulogy speeches. It is when the natural order is violated – for example at the death of a young person, especially if s/he is unmarried or has young children – that special rituals are required to pacify the ruptured ‘natural’ order. Kligman (1988) notes that in the Transylvanian case the death of an unmarried person or someone with young children requires the performance of special rituals. The ‘wedding of the dead’ is a symbolic marriage that appeases the spirit of the deceased and restores the natural order. Pine writes about a similar event in the Podhale region of Poland (1996b: 453-4). In the much more secular situation in the Bulgarian countryside, I have not witnessed ‘weddings of the dead’ as described for Romania or Poland. Even in extremely tragic deaths during the socialist period, no verbal stories outside those in the eulogy were heard. For example, in 1987 a youth aged 17 was killed in a car accident. Discussion surrounding his death was limited to factual accounts of the car accident in which the adolescent died, and criticism of his drunken father who was driving at the time. At the funeral there were some visual signs that underlined the particularly tragic nature of the event and the prob- lematic disruption of the natural order – through, for example, the use of the colour red rather than black (also noted by Kligman 1988; Pine pers. comm.), both in the coffin and at the home of the deceased. The greater number of objects placed in the coffin – not only food but also clothes and other items considered necessary for the ‘other world’ – were a visual though unarticu- lated gesture attesting to the exceptional nature of the situation. Unlike more ‘ordinary’ funerals, two eulogies were read for the youth, one in the village square and the other by the grave-side.Thus, state concessions to the particularly tragic nature of the incident were made. The eulogies were the prominent public verbal means for acknowledging the untimeliness of the death. So far as I am aware, informal discourse that spoke against the facts did not occur.11 It is only in the post-socialist period that ‘unnatural’ deaths no longer seem sufficiently ‘explained’ by the eulogies.At the same time, people perceive there to be many more deaths of this type since 1989: Irina commented on this when I visited her in Sofia soon after Atanaska’s death (see below). In such situations, informal stories begin to circulate, such as the one I have noted DEEMA KANEFF 99 about Atanaska. The striking aspect of Atanaska’s story is the prominence of themes of corruption and mysticism. Such unofficial accounts of the death pose a very different relation between the individual and nature from that represented in the formal eulogy-reading, that is, from the discourse that constitutes the main part of the secular ceremony.

Changing relations between the individual and the state In this discussion concerning relations between ‘man’ and the ‘natural order’, something is also being implied about the individual’s relationship to the state. As noted above, during the socialist period, it was the state that acted as the mediator between ‘the individual’ and the ‘natural’ world.Via a wide range of organizations – educational, scientific, medical – the state was responsible for uncovering the ‘laws of nature’ and controlling them for the benefit of humanity and the realization of its social(ist) goals. The state not only medi- ated but, in fact, shaped the ‘natural’ and ‘social’ order through its organs (health, educational, and so on). It was thus a central and prominent force in an individual’s life: not only in very direct ways such as through the control of production, but also in more ‘indirect’ ways in terms of its role in changing perceptions and understandings about the social and natural world, as, for example, through influence over life-cycle rituals.12 Since the state was a central organizing principle in life-cycle events, individual participation in state-sponsored practices such as funerals represented an ‘alliance’ between the state and citizen. Every dimension of the individual’s life as represented in the eulogy – his/her career, family – was presented as positively influenced and regulated by state intervention through the benefits of free education, co-operative agri- culture, and so on. In turn, the individual’s life achievements as presented in the eulogies revealed his/her contribution to building socialist society. It was a way of showing support for the state, for its organizations and the order it imposed on an individual’s life. This relationship between the individual and the state was a symbiotic one. Socialist paternalism was a two-way process: the state was concerned to look after the welfare of the people – education, housing, health – and citizens, for their part, were expected to contribute to the development of state socialism, through their work, family, community, and other state-approved social relations. It is this relationship of reciprocity between the individual and state that is presently being renegotiated. Post-socialist reform – including policies of pri- vatization and decentralization – has led to a retreat of the state from direct political and economic determination over citizens’ lives. At the same time state control over other domains of the socially contructed world is also weakening. Such changes are indicated in the way ‘nature’ is discussed in the stories surrounding Atanaska’s death. In the informal discourses, it is the very nature of the ‘natural order’ and the ways in which individuals relate to it that is being questioned. Contrary to the way it is represented in the eulogies, ‘nature’ is portrayed in recent stories as outside state jurisdiction. Thus, for example, two disruptions to the natural order feature in the story about Atanaska’s death: the severance 100 DEEMA KANEFF of bonds between mother and child, and the untimely death of Atanaska (the story offers an explanation for this otherwise incomprehensible event). Atanaska is a ‘victim’, a mother whose familial bonds had been destroyed when her child was taken away from her. In this case her saviour is not the medical profession or the state, as one would expect. Rather, the state is portrayed as weak, while its organs, the medical system and absent police force, are portrayed as corrupt powers. Atanaska has been betrayed by the weak state and its unsound agents. In place of the once strong state is a new, powerful, and prominent group of wealthy people who will stop at nothing – including manipulating the state for their own ends and threatening individuals with physical force and even murder – to get their way. Such a class of person is well known to Talpians whose references to the ‘new rich’ are prominent in their discussions about post-socialist reforms.‘No one’, they inform me,‘can get rich so fast by honest means.’ A popular subject of informal stories, such shady characters are both loathed and feared by Talpians. It is difficult not to sympathize with villagers who in the last ten years have faced a real decline in their standard of living and an increase in economic hardship.Yet in this particular case it is awkward to align all the elements of the story into a coherent factual account.The ‘abduc- tion’ of the baby happened in 1988, before the collapse of state socialism and the rise of the new class of wealthy Bulgarians. Nevertheless, the contradiction was not recognized by those propagating such stories: for Maria, Milka, and others, there was no doubt as to who was behind the death of Atanaska.They did not hesitate in allocating blame to the nouveaux riches of the post-socialist period, rather than to any powerful figures from the socialist era. In this situation of impotent state and powerful wealthy individuals, ‘truth’ and ‘knowledge’ (as well as moral superiority) are no longer in the hands of the state.The fortune-teller has supplanted the role once held by state organs. Indeed, the sudden appearance and popularity of fortune-tellers and faith- healers after 1989 can be understood in the context of a weakening state and a social order that is in the midst of upheaval.13 Turning to fortune-tellers is a public, although unofficial, acknowledgement that natural processes are not within human control. It indicates a collective hope, if not belief, that the truth can be known through mystical practices; nature is presented as deci- pherable to the mystics rather than to the rational organs of the state. Thus, the story surrounding Atanaska’s death presents the view that restoration of the natural order is not within secular human (state) control; state agents do not provide justice. Ultimately, Atanaska placed her trust in the fortune-teller as an authoritative figure who could right wrongs and reunite mother and daughter. If we view the eulogies as part of the socialist government’s (relatively suc- cessful) attempts to transform funerals into non-religious ceremonies, then the informal stories – such as the one circulating after Atanaska’s death – represent a major shift, both in terms of their content and, indeed, by the very act of their being spoken. Funerals were never purely secular, but until recently religious/mystical activities were usually confined to non-verbalized practices. Since 1989, the state has been relinquishing its control, not only over economic and political institutions, but also over language – control over what is discussed in public and how it is discussed, and correspondingly over the ways DEEMA KANEFF 101 in which individuals are publicly able to express, understand, and give meaning to events directly relevant to their lives. Once a dominant force in shaping the ways in which people spoke about the nature of life and death, the state is no longer so influential. Criticism of the state has moved to the public domain of language. People seek explanations for exceptional and incomprehensible events – breaking bonds between mother and child and the death of young people – in the weak and corrupt nature of the state and the accompanying rise of elites who manipulate such situations for their own personal benefit. Post- socialist discourse discussed here is not, as we might expect, targeting the once-forceful totalitarian state, but rather its presently weakened role in society. The informal story is a critical discourse of the contemporary state which cannot offer ordinary citizens protection against a newly emerging wealthy elite. Evocative transcripts – such as the one I have reproduced above – represent a reassessment of the state’s relationship with its citizens and may even be seen as an appeal by the latter for a return to greater state powers and protection.

Conclusion Atanaska’s death belongs to a different category from those that form a central part of the work of Merridale (2000) who writes about heroes of war and victims of repression – deaths which carry meaning for citizens of the former Soviet Union in terms of a national history of wars and political turmoil, deaths which have been reappraised in the last decade of reform. Verdery (1999) is also concerned with either the named and famous dead, or with the (re)burial of anonymous and nameless victims who have significance as political symbols in the national histories and memories of particular east European countries. The individual deaths with which I am concerned are apparently unattached to such nationally significant histories and traumas.Yet they are no less significant in terms of providing insights into the nature of the citizen’s changing position with respect to the post-socialist state. There is a notable similarity, across post-socialist contexts, in the shifting position of language and discourse – and by implication of history and memory – in an environment where open discussion of particular events was once not encouraged.The case that I have explored above suggests a very different relationship between funeral practices and social order from that which has been assumed for non-Western and Western societies. In the Bulgarian context it is not a question of funeral practices either legitimating or standing outside of a social order (Bloch & Parry 1982: 15).The separation between individual and state, the loss of the reciprocal relationship between the two, represents more generally a revaluation of the position of the individual in the social order. Under socialism, an individual’s life was appraised in terms of the contribution s/he made to socialist society. That is, an individual was valued with respect to the state and its political agenda (Kaneff, forthcoming). The main point of social reference for the individual was the state apparatus. It is this relationship that is now under review. The new discourse that is springing up around funerals indicates that a reordering and revaluation is 102 DEEMA KANEFF taking place: a reordering which implicates the state and individual citizens who make the social world. Citizens perceive an increasing wedge being driven between themselves and the once-protective state.The previously symbiotic relationship between individual and state is being replaced with another, in some ways quite surprising, relationship. In the topsy-turvy situation of post-socialism, ‘ordinary’ people appeal to mystics and fortune-tellers to help them make sense of their new circumstances. In so doing, a public rejection of any codified practices (to recall Bourdieu’s term) rooted in either the state or any other formalized structure, such as institutionalized religion, is revealed. While it is true that some of the previously religion-based non-verbal practices are gaining greater usage – for example, the carrying of the cross at some funerals – such references to formal religion remain low key. Given the fact that institutionalized religion provided perhaps the most important means by which to express public resistance to the state during the socialist period, it is surprising that it has not attained more prominence since 1989. This observation is less relevant for Talpa, which has a long history of being politically pro-socialist – a position originating in the late nineteenth century and continuing to the present day. However, in other sites in the region (for instance, the town of Nekilva) there was an increase in the popularity of the Orthodox Church immediately after 1989: attendance at services grew, as did the popularity of christening rites. But the ‘curiosity’ value (the reason given by local individuals for their renewed interest in the Church) soon wore off. People seem happier appealing to the informal domain of mystical beliefs and superstitions, that is, to non-institutionalized practices which are not encoded or objecti- fied in writing. Mystical – rather than formalized religious – practices are step- ping in to mediate between the individual and the ‘natural’ order. It is through appeals to this uncodified domain of social practice that people are attempting to make sense of their disrupted lives under post-socialism. The perceived upheaval in village life over recent years of political and economic change is accompanied by a breakdown of the total set of social relations that constituted the socialist world. In part, I have in mind the shift in public/private boundaries that Pine has described (1996a), as the state retreats from its controlling role in a whole variety of significant domains (including language) which once gave structure to individuals’ everyday existence. But the reforms are also taking their toll in more fundamental ways, as, for example, in the way that the cosmological order – the socially constructed ‘natural’ and ‘social’ world – is understood (see also Verdery 1999: 33-5). What we are witnessing is the breakdown not only of the political- economic system, but of a whole social order set up over half a century of socialist rule. The ‘natural’ order, what is ‘culturally’ significant, beliefs associated with birth, weddings, and death, the ways individuals position themselves and relate to official state structures, are all under negotiation (see also Creed, forthcoming). The resultant stress which such reordering places on individuals’ lives inevitably becomes a topic of local conversation. Evocative transcripts concerning death, such as the one discussed here, are an expression of the disruption that the reforms have introduced into villagers’ lives. Unfortunately, DEEMA KANEFF 103

Atanaska’s story is representative, a tale of tragedy and chaos that is collec- tively meaningful to all Talpians, with ‘appeal to common values and experi- ences’ (Humphrey 1994: 40).When I visited Irina and Kolyo in Soﬁa just days after Atanaska’s death, Irina told me: ‘There’s something strange – look at our neighbourhood, no ones dies “naturally” anymore. I’m scared to go and face Anton [Atanaska’s father] and the whole scene.’To labour the point she listed those who had died in our neighbourhood (in Talpa) over the last few years: starting with her brother who had died at the age of 33, accidentally elec- trocuted while working on electrical cables, then the son-in-law of Maria who committed suicide at the age of 43 in 1995, then the great-grandmother of Atanaska who hanged herself at the age of 92 earlier in 1996, and now, most recently, Atanaska. These deaths are perceived as ‘unnatural’ in part because they were ‘untimely’, but also because they are viewed as a consequence of an alien and incomprehensible social, political, or economic order that is currently endangering the known social world. Atanaska is just one of post- socialism’s many victims.

NOTES

This paper was originally given as a seminar at the Department of Social Anthropology, Uni- versity of Cambridge, in 1997. I would like to thank Caroline Humphrey and Frances Pine for their helpful comments at the time. I am particularly indebted to Frances Pine for reading later versions; this paper has benefited considerably from her suggestions. I would also like to express my gratitude to Steven Reyna (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology) for his critical reading of an earlier draft. 1 Names of people and the village are pseudonyms. 2 My first fieldwork in Talpa was in 1986-8 and I have returned regularly to the village since. 3 Indeed, language is always highly politicized, even in capitalist states, as authors such as Chomsky (e.g. 1989) have shown. However, while control over language is a task with which all governments are concerned – for example, the issue of political correctness and anti- to harassment and anti-racism protections all imply a need to control language – the extent to which this goal was pursued in socialist states was of a considerably higher order. 4 In my view, this ignores the large number of ways in which communication was main- tained outside the domain of language, for example, through bodily practices (see Connerton 1989) and other visual symbols.The public domain was, and is, much more than just a product of verbal construction. In situations where there is strict control over the verbal domain, other forms of communication become significant. Gross (1988) and Dimitrova (1993) also propose that language in the socialist state was divorced from ‘truth’ and ‘objective reality’.This assumes that there is one absolute, objective reality and that language is the only means to represent it. Clearly, the situation is far more complicated than this. 5 Following Lane (1981: 14-15), I find it hard to distinguish between the two. 6 For example, 8km away in a neighbouring village, a priest practised throughout the socialist era. The regional differences reflected various historical and political factors, which I will not go into here. 7 Below, I provide a skeletal description of funeral practices. For a more detailed description, see Kaneff forthcoming. 8 While some of the customs were clearly rooted in practices originating in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Talpians usually did not or could not articulate the religious significance behind these acts. 9 See Kaneff forthcoming. 10 During my first fieldwork visit to Talpa, I collected approximately fifty eulogies written by a retired villager who, throughout his career as school principal, officiated at numerous village funerals. 104 DEEMA KANEFF

11 As in the case of Atanaska, I was also relatively close to the family of the deceased youth and thus can be relatively certain that had any informal verbal speculations arisen in respect to the latter case, I would have known about them. 12 Elsewhere, I have suggested that the centralized nature of state socialism meant that an individual’s (or a particular community’s) relationship to the state-centre was particularly important (Kaneff forthcoming).While it is true that the ways in which one positioned oneself with respect to the state-centre were of fundamental importance in terms of attaining goods, resources, and privileges that were controlled and allocated by the state-centre, this vertical pattern of movement (discussed by Verdery 1991), where everything was valued with respect to the centre, did not, I suggest, pertain solely to economic resources. Such a vertical ﬂow was equally relevant to the ﬂow of power – to political careers and social capital more generally. It is not possible, in the context of this article, to elaborate in any detail on how connections to the state-centre were established (but see Kaneff forthcoming for a fuller account). In brief, close connections to the centre were achieved through participation in socialist ideology and rituals – including state-sponsored funeral practices. 13 Apart from Baba Vanga – a fortune-teller who may not have been authorized by the socialist state but was not stopped from practising – such mystics were not prominent before 1989. In Talpa I rarely noted references to such people. After 1989 already established mystics practised more openly; some toured the villages, including Talpa. Also, many new mystics suddenly ‘discovered’ that they were gifted and jumped on the bandwagon of what became, for a time at least, a lucrative business activity.

REFERENCES

Binns, C.A.P. 1979. The changing face of power: revolution and accommodation in the development of the Soviet ceremonial system: part 1. Man (N.S.), 14, 585-606. ——— 1980.The changing face of power: revolution and accommodation in the development of the Soviet ceremonial system: part 2. Man (N.S.), 15, 170-87. Bloch, M. & J. Parry 1982. Introduction: death and the regeneration of life. In Death and the regeneration of life (eds) M. Bloch & J. Parry, 1-44. Cambridge: University Press. Bourdieu, P. 1990. In other words: essays towards a reﬂexive sociology (trans. M. Adamson). Cambridge: Polity Press. Chomsky, N. 1989. Necessary illusions: thought control in democratic societies. Boston: South End Press. Connerton, P. 1989. How societies remember. Cambridge: University Press. Creed, G.W. forthcoming. Economic crisis and ritual decline in rural eastern Europe. In Post- socialism: ideals, ideologies and practices in Eurasia (ed.) C.M. Hann. London: Routledge. Dimitrova, B. 1993. Language and politics in Bulgaria. In Towards a new community: culture and politics in post-totalitarian Europe (eds) P.J.S. Duncan & M. Rady, 133-45. London: University of London, School of Slavonic & East European Studies; Hamburg & Münster: LIT Verlag. Gross, J.T. 1988. Revolution from abroad: the Soviet conquest of Poland’s Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Humphrey, C. 1994. Remembering an ‘enemy’: the Bogd Khaan in twentieth-century Mon- golia. In Memory, history and opposition under state socialism (ed.) R.S. Watson, 21-44. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press. Kaneff, D. forthcoming. Who owns the past? The politics of time in a ‘model’ Bulgarian village. Oxford: Berghahn. Kligman, G. 1983. Poetry and politics in a Transylvanian village. Anthropological Quarterly 56: 2, 83-9. ——— 1988. The wedding of the dead: ritual, poetics and popular culture in Transylvania. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lane, C. 1981. The rites of rulers: ritual in industrial society – the Soviet case. Cambridge: Univer- sity Press. Merridale, C. 2000. Night of stone: death and memory in Russia. London: Granta Books. Pine, F.1996a. Redeﬁning women’s work in rural Poland. In After socialism: land reform and social change in eastern Europe (ed.) R. Abrahams, 133-55. Oxford: Berghahn Books. DEEMA KANEFF 105

——— 1996b. Naming the house and naming the land: kinship and social groups in highland Poland. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 2, 443-59. Scott, J.C. 1990. Domination and the arts of resistance: hidden transcripts. New Haven:Yale Univer- sity Press. Verdery, K. 1991. Theorizing socialism: a prologue to the ‘transition’. American Ethnologist 18: 3, 419-39. ——— 1999. The political lives of dead bodies: reburial and post-socialist change. New York: Columbia University Press

Pourquoi les gens ne meurent plus de mort naturelle: la transformation des rapports entre ‘l’individu’ et ‘l’État’ en Bulgarie post-socialiste

Résumé Cet article explore le thème de la mort aﬁn d’élucider les changements des rapports entre ‘l’individu’ et ‘l’État’ dans le contexte de la Bulgarie post-socialiste. Les études antérieures sur les rituels et la société socialistes indiquent l’existence d’un lien étroit entre l’idéologie étatique et la notion socialement élaborée d’ordre ‘naturel’, qui est partiellement reproduit par l’engagement à prendre part dans des rituels du cycle de vie sponsorisés par l’État, tels que les funérailles. En portant l’attention sur les modalités présentes des funérailles et plus particulièrement sur les propos des villageois sur la mort, je suggère que le nouveau discours révèle des changements importants, à savoir une réorganisation du rapport entre ‘l’individu’ et l’ordre ‘naturel’ comme construction sociale. L’État n’agit plus comme une force de média- tion aussi puissante dans ce rapport. La réforme post-socialiste implique donc plus qu’un ‘simple’ changement politique et économique; elle représente une rupture plus générale au sein du réseau total des relations qui constituaient le monde socialiste.

Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, PO Box 11 03 51, 06017 Halle, Germany. [email protected]