His case is a first step towards an attempt of reformulating the image of the state artist during the 1950s Bulgaria.ĭuring the second half of the twentieth century, Eastern European countries together with the Soviet Union were ideologically dominated by Marxism-Leninism and experienced the establishment of socialism in all spheres of activity. Lyubomir Dalchev is a representative of the “counter-adaptive artists” as early as the 1950s, a type of state artists that, while not entering political debates, consistently defended their artistic choices, and that were more obviously present in the 1960s and 1970s.
Through the analysis of archival protocols of the Bulgarian State Archive and the personal archives of the architect Danko Mitov involved in the building of the monument, of the monument Danko Mitov - archives that either have not been exploited by researchers before, or have not been available until now - the argument is that the figure of the state artist in the 1950s in Bulgaria is more nuanced than previous studies reveal. As a state artist before the coup d’état from 1944 and remaining as such afterwards, Dalchev constitutes the perfect case study concerning the relations between the state and the artists, as well as the limits and the possible transgressions during the first decade of socialism in Bulgaria. This chapter analyzes the case of one of the best Bulgarian sculptors, Lyubomir Dalchev, and his participation to the art collective of the Monument of the Soviet Army in Sofia.
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