Syndicate: '10 years later' project

[ventsislav zankov <venci@osf.acad.bg>]

To the visitor

'The experience is like a lantern, that you carry on your back: it throws 
light over what you have left behind' (Confucius). How about all of us that 
left behind socialist regimes . . . do we feel that our experience is 
useless.

The regimes fell apart . . .how about the past we shared?

Do we still feel the life in the Block, behind our back? Did we, or may be 
we did not take part in the operations under the Warsaw treaty? Do we know 
each other well enough to turn our backs to one another, with our eyes 
fixed into the West (still sharing a common direction)?

The wall that we are trying really hard to erect between our past and 
present, isn't that the shadow of the absurd Berlin Wall that we furiously 
tore apart? And our dearest parents, did they simply led their empty, 
useless lives, that will soon come to their little empty ends? And the 
women we loved, did we love them?

Why not make a cross over them all and just ignore them? And make the cross 
three times, just in case XXX . . . here we go, neat and tidy, . . . free 
of our shameful past . . . free of our own selves, . . . like little, 
stupid, happy zombies.

Do you buy this?

Or may be give it one more TRY:

To the Warsaw Treaty with Love
Ten Years Later


Ten years later the traps of change finally got us: we have changed.

Our collective memory cheats us now and then, and we can't help that: we 
used to be 'comrades' to each other, after all. . . we had to. This 
aggressive 'brotherhood' we have went through, 'was meant' to get us closer 
together; it turned out, however, that we are worlds apart. . . . aliens to 
each other and applicants to the West.

What happened to us? Is it that our memories have turned bleak and useless, 
or maybe our past feels like yesterday papers? It was only yesterday that 
our mammas and papas, our grannies, our precious 'us' lived together in 
'our communist system' and shared the rumors that the West is the land of 
Dreams Come True. The dreams we did not dare to voice. . .We still have 
lives that we shared, after all, we served together in the Warsaw troops, 
we learned together our lessons in Russian, we had our summer Black Sea 
holidays together . . . and we did not know each other . . . did we?

The changes we went through did not help much to know better . . . we the 
Easterners, headed on our winding way to EUROPE, everyone of us on their 
own way towards their own trap, can we face each other now and kiss 
goodbye? Can we make one last effort to share our first love turmoil, our 
student years and army service, our holidays and work leaves, our socialist 
past that history turned down. It is our blood and flesh in there, deformed 
by the common denominator of the former regimes. Ten years after their 
collapse, these years have entered the records of history: how about us?

. . . the traps of change finally got us . . .

Our long winding way to Europe . . , communist past as our starting point, 
Western democracy as the destination, . . .  English proficiency is a must, 
. . . this is our last chance to grasp our past, free of politics and 
ideology,
to hold our past lives, to share them  . . .
to kiss them good buy
 and meet each other
. . . at last.

http://www.nlcv.net/1945_89

Ventsislav Zankov
freelance artist&lecturer
New Bulgarian University
Sofia
contact address:
1. Pleven str., Bl. 87, entr.A
1618 Pavlovo
Sofia
Bulgaria
phone/fax (00359 2) 56 96 82
e-mail 	vzankov@mont.nbu.acad.bg
	venci@osf.acad.bg
http://www.photone.ch/zankov
http://www.photone.ch/ispace

"Ten Years Later" Project
http://www.nlcv.net/1945_89