Kristen Ghodsee

The Red Riviera

This compelling ethnography of women working in Bulgaria’s popular sea and ski resorts challenges the idea that women have consistently fared worse than men in Eastern Europe’s transition from socialism to a market economy. For decades western European tourists have flocked to Bulgaria’s beautiful beaches and mountains; tourism is today one of the few successful—and expanding—sectors of the country’s economy. Even at the highest levels of management, employment in the tourism industry has long been dominated by women. Kristen Ghodsee explains why this is and how women working in the industry have successfully negotiated their way through Bulgaria’s capitalist transformation while the fortunes of most of the population have plummeted. She highlights how, prior to 1989, the communist planners sought to create full employment for all at the same time that they steered women into the service sector. The women given jobs in tourism obtained higher educations, foreign language skills, and experiences working with Westerners, all of which positioned them to take advantage of the institutional changes eventually brought about by privatization. Interspersed throughout The Red Riviera are vivid examinations of the lives of Bulgarian women, including a waitress, a tour operator, a chef, a maid, a receptionist, and a travel agent. Through these women’s stories, Ghodsee describes their employment prior to 1989 and after. She considers the postsocialist forces that have shaped the tourist industry over the past fifteen years: the emergence of a new democratic state, the small but increasing interest of foreign investors and transnational corporations, and the proliferation of ngos. Ghodsee suggests that many of the ngos, by insisting that Bulgarian women are necessarily disenfranchised, ignore their significant professional successes.

Left Wing, Right Wing, Everything: Xenophobia, Neo-totalitarianism, and Populist Politics in Bulgaria

The Ataka party plays up ethnic and religious intolerance to garner far-right support for its far-left political agenda.

State Support in the Market: Women and Tourism Employment in Post-Socialist Bulgaria

In many former Eastern Bloc countries, economic transition has been responsible for drastic declines the social and economic well-being for both men and women. In general, however, women have tended to experience relatively greater losses since 1989. Through a detailed case study of womens employment in the tourism sector of post-Communist Bulgaria, this chapter will argue that state support for certain economic sectors can help improve the relative economic welfare of women. Using both qualitative and quantitative data, this study finds that state support for viable economic sectors with relatively high wages that employ a “critical mass” of women can help to ease the difficult transition from centrally-planned to free-market economies.

Red Nostalgia? Communism, Women’s Emancipation, and Economic Transformation in Bulgaria

There is a popular joke in Bulgaria about a woman who sits bolt upright in the middle of the night in a panic. She jumps out of bed and rushes to the bathroom to look in the medicine cabinet. Then, she runs into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator. Finally, she dashes to the window and looks out onto the street. Relieved, she returns to the bedroom. Her husband asks her, “What’s wrong with you?” “I had a terrible nightmare”, she says. “I dreamt that we could still afford to buy medicine, that the refrigerator was absolutely full, and that the streets were safe and clean.” “How is that a nightmare?” the husband asks. The woman shakes her head, “I thought the communists were back in power.” This joke highlights a popular nostalgia for the “good” parts of communism that was just starting to re-emerge in the early years of the 21st century. Evidence of this nostalgia has begun to appear in the most unlikely places. In the summer of 2003, in the seaside resorts of Bulgaria, souvenir vendors were selling Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (CCCP) and German Democratic Republic (DDR) t-shirts to tourists. At the same time, compact disc pirates in Sofia were running out of the CD Golden Songs of Russia, with a red and yellow cover and the “Hymn of the USSR” as the first track. In front of the Alexander Nevski Cathedral, Bulgarian antique dealers sold all kinds of socialist pins, buttons, and medals, busts of Marx and Lenin, and old postcards of the now-destroyed Georgi Dimitrov Mausoleum. These things had always been for sale to curious tourists who were hoping to pick up a few communist era trinkets, but these days the antique vendors say that nostalgic Bulgarians are becoming their best customers. Walking along the streets in Plovdiv or Varna, or in cafes and bars in Sofia, one can often hear a cell phone with its ring tone set to the chorus of “The Internationale”. On the one hand, these artefacts of the past are probably a form of popular kitsch that Bulgarians have had for some time to distance themselves from the oppressive nature of

Untangling the knot: A response to Nanette Funk

I am delighted that the editors of the Open Forum of the European Journal of Women’s Studies have allowed me the opportunity to respond to Nanette Funk’s provocative and incisive article: ‘A very tangled knot: Official state socialist women’s organizations, women’s agency and feminism in Eastern European state socialism.’ As one of the nine ‘Revisionist Feminist Scholars’ named in Funk’s article, I feel compelled to address the ‘conceptual-philosophical analysis’ presented in the article on its own conceptualphilosophical terms. I do not purport to speak for all of the ‘Revisionist Feminist Scholars,’ and I know that many of them have specific disagreements with Funk’s reading of their research. But here I want to home in on the key claim that state socialist women’s organizations did not have agency, or at least did not have the right kind of agency. At the very outset of her article, Funk claims that she will offer a ‘conceptualphilosophical analysis of the concept of “women’s agency” and a concomitant reinterpretation of the historical evidence on official state socialist women’s organizations’ agency and feminism.’ She argues that, ‘Feminist Revisionist Scholars have overlooked important distinctions in the concept of “women’s agency” that cast doubt on the extent of women’s agency in official women’s organizations.’ It is clear from her opening remarks that Funk intends to provide a specific definition of ‘women’s agency’ that will undermine claims that state socialist women’s organizations were effective agents of positive change for women in their countries. Funk, however, does not define ‘women’s agency’ in her introduction. Instead, the first section of the article deals with how the establishment of state socialist women’s organizations after the Second World War denied some women ‘chances to act.’ Funk cites a variety of secondary sources to establish that East European communist governments disbanded pre-war women’s organizations and replaced them with official state women’s organizations. Based on this evidence, she states: ‘Thus, because of official women’s organizations, many women throughout the region from 1945 to 1989 who

Research note: The historiographical challenges of exploring Second World–Third World alliances in the international women’s movement

Throughout the United Nations (UN) Decade for Women, world governments met three times in Mexico City (1975), Copenhagen (1980), and Nairobi (1985) to discuss the status of the world’s women and produce conference documents that would serve as transnational road maps for improving women’s rights. Throughout the Decade, a coalition of women from the socialist bloc countries and women in the so-called nonaligned countries often joined together to isolate and antagonize Western feminists. These ‘Second World’–‘Third World’ coalitions perhaps shaped the political outcomes of the three women’s conferences, but today the history of the UN Decade is often written with an air of Western triumphalism, as if it was exclusively women from North America and Western Europe who championed women’s rights on the international stage. This research note specifically explores the transnational socialist solidarity networks that were forged between the Committee of the Bulgarian Women’s Movement (CBWM) and women from Zambian United National Independence Party (UNIP) Women’s League between 1975 and 1985. It discusses the theoretical and logistical challenges of doing research to fill in these glaring historiographical gaps.

Minarets after Marx Islam, Communist Nostalgia, and the Common Good in Postsocialist Bulgaria

This article examines the interplay between communist nostalgia and new forms of universalist Islam among Slavic Muslims (Pomaks) in Bulgaria. Many Bulgarians are looking back to the totalitarian era with increasing fondness given the ubiquitous crime and corruption that has characterized the postsocialist era. This nostalgia also informs the changing nature of Islam in Bulgaria after 1989 and the unique ways that Bulgarians understand religious identity in relation to ethnic affiliation. The author argues that the appeal of “orthodox” Islam in this postsocialist context is at least partially rooted in its discursive emphasis on social justice and the promotion of the common good. This discourse is particularly appealing to the Pomaks in the author’s field site because of their unique experiences of both communism and capitalism. Before 1989, they saw a dramatic rise in their living standards, but this was coupled with severe religious oppression. After 1989, they gained unbridled religious freedoms but saw their communities economically devastated by the corrupt privatization and bankruptcy of the lead-zinc mining enterprise that was the core of their livelihood. To these Pomaks, “orthodox” Islam promises to be an ideological third way, combining the benefits of both systems: spiritual freedom and honest economic prosperity.