Режимът на забраняване-позволяване
The ban/permit regime

Summary/Abstract: The paper deals with the special way of censoring theatre in the socialist era in Bulgaria. As far as the very term ‘censorship’ requires defining the set of rules of exercising it and the relevant censored subject, it is arguable that over the said period no such things were in place and in this respect there was no censorship though its scope was all-encompassing. In writing dramas, which is a collective work to a degree due to its specifics, internal and external bans emerged all the time and consequently, banning seemed to be a collective act in that period though according to circumstances, always having its actors and eventually, veiled in silence. Banning and permitting, however, were not in opposition, but rather flexible and indelible parts of a whole. Ban was permissive and permission was banning. Banning permitted what had not been banned and permission banned what had not been permitted. Permission restrained for it was known that bans had been imposed. Banning/permitting was in fact a technology of hidden and manoeuvring devices. It is another story to what extent it was their hiddenness that ought to reveal even further the censorial resources of the authorities. Authors were forced to allow for inevitable compromises by all this. The levels of censoring proved to be endless: at times the interferences seemed to be justified and at times, just random. But then if everything was censorship, that there was no such thing as censorship. Banning/permission, of course, underscores the illegal nature of communism.

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