The context

Contemporary historians have no doubts about the fact that ‘the political upheaval in Bulgaria after the end of the Second World War was primarily due to the great geopolitical change, i.e. the passage of Eastern Europe from the sphere of pro-Western interests […] to the Soviet sphere of influence. The decisive role of the external factor was visible not only at the time of establishing the Soviet state socialism model in Bulgaria but also in the course of its development and collapse in the second half of the 1980s’ (Baeva Reference Baeva2010, p. 10). As early as the end of the 1940s, the state was already ruling and controlling all spheres of artistic culture, firmly resting on the powerful ideological mechanisms of Stalinism, and the formula of socialist realism was imposed as the only proper artistic method. The subsequent repressions for ideological reasons directly affected a number of prominent musicians working in different genres. In his memoirs about that time, the composer Ivan Spassov talked about structural deformation of the natural artistic process (see Spassov, Miseria na duha / Misery of Spirit 1993, p. 43). The directions in art at that time, encouraged by the new authority, greatly reduced the creative flight of the person. They mainly stimulated placard expression, demonstrative political propaganda, hymns glorifying the heroic past, the romance of labour and creation, the new positive character, the loud patriotism. Leading roles in the field of music were assigned to the mass song as well as to the symphonic, opera and oratorio genres.

The intimate foreshortenings and the intricacies of the psychological creative vision related to the avant-garde ideas in the field of musical modernism as well as some aspects of the fashionable entertaining music did not fit into the context of the socialist culture with its accents on the collective beginning at the expense of the individual human being. At least in the dominating official environment, part of which was also the Union of Bulgarian Composers, the prestigious signs in art at that time were commensurate with other categories. Under a centralised cultural policy, the chances of any deviation from the ‘right course’ in the creation and distribution of music were virtually impossible. It was not a coincidence that both modernisms and musical entertainment were viewed with suspicion, which was also a reflection of the permanently established values towards the expression observed in the field of popular genres (interpreted as being the result of a ‘decadent’ bourgeois influence!). Thus, within the range of the harshly criticised music trends fell not only the modernist trends but also the popular genres. The new authority rejected popular tunes, tangos and operettas as an expression of hostile bourgeois influence. The growing stagnation in the conditions of a totalitarian regime shrouded in fear of ‘ideological diversion’ as well as the reference to the principles of normative aesthetics (not only a ‘Bulgarian’ tendency!) cultivated a rather sterile notion of artistic values. Connected with the pompous as well as sanctioning gestures of the official culture, such a notion tolerated negativity towards the notes of undisguised joy in music, interpreted as a flat unambiguous category that did not seem to have very much in common with the intellectual space of artistic experience.

The instructions ‘from above’ specified not only what but also how to write. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, a number of young Bulgarian composers learned new creative approaches. They were subject to harsh criticism, especially after the ill-famed Decree of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (B) published in February 1948, when the gloomy shadow of Zhdanov – a close associate of Stalin and an ideologist of the socialist realism – tightened the methods of ‘formalism’ and the unconventional attempts in the field of atonal music.

The stagnation in the late 1940s and early 1950s was also evident from the point of view of accessing up-to-date music information. Immediately after World War II, the Bulgarians could hardly suspect the upcoming ideological opposition between the East and the West, the subsequent informational blackouts or, for example, the relentless criticism of the swing's postwar fashion. At least until 1947, Bulgaria was exposed not only to the Soviet but also to American influence, including through the screenings of famous American film musicals. The situation changed sharply after 1948. The paths of penetration of current music information were fundamentally different from the usual channels in the Western world. Here, it was hardly possible to speak of any role of the otherwise powerful Western music industry. The channels in that direction were rather problematic as a result of episodic informal infiltration. An important role in that respect was played by the music broadcasts of Western radio stations such as Radio Luxembourg, BBC, Radio Monte Carlo and Voice of America. Despite the attempts to silence the ‘enemy’ radio stations, their emissions opened a gap in the musical literacy of keen enthusiasts with interests in the spheres of jazz and rock music, as well as avant-garde music.

After the Soviet model of the 1950s, the music of entertainment was already called estrada (pop music). With the accelerated migration from rural to urban areas, estrada was becoming increasingly popular. The impossibility of forbidding completely Western influence led to a relative freedom in the development of this genre, which was also recognised as a local socialist alternative to the bourgeois popular culture.

The post-1956 thaw process after the Bulgarian Communist Party April Plenum seemed to soften the censorship of art. But not quite. That same year, a review of works by young musicians was held. Harshly criticised were works by K. Iliev, L. Nikolov, S. Pironkov, V. Kazandzhiev and I. Spassov. They were criticised for the character of their compositional approaches, the means of expression borrowed from the arsenal of the Western European modernist art and the intrusion of foreign intonations into the so-called common tone. In a review article, the prominent composer Petko Staynov noted that the general panorama, which, in general, affirmed the national image of our contemporary professional music, included authors whose creative works ‘sharply deviated from the main line’. ‘In the name of dubious innovation, they brought into our musical practice musical expression means that were extrinsical from a modern ideological–aesthetic point of view and borrowed from the Western European modernist art’ (Staynov Reference Staynov1956, p. 2). The story, however, showed that it was exactly those authors who would become part of the strengths of the Bulgarian road to contemporary music in the second half of the 20th century.

No less harsh critics pointed to the new manifestations of youth culture influenced by Western rock music and modern life styles. In his commissioned article, entitled ‘Psychology of tape recorder youth’, published in Plamuk magazine in 1963, Yulian Vuchkov aimed to propagate the decisions of Politburo to strengthen the struggle against bourgeois influence among youth. The ‘Magnetic Youth’ is, of course, represented as ‘spiritually poor and devastated’ by bourgeois influence and leading a life incompatible with the agitations and aspirations of socialist society (see Vuchkov Reference Vuchkov1963, pp. 141–52). And after the Czech events in 1968, the ideological dictate again reminded people of the ‘strong of the day’. Similarly to other socialist countries during the 1960s, the music in Bulgaria at that time was associated with the ‘defrosting’ process and the hope for renewal that overtook the artistic intelligentsia following the April Plenum in 1956. The notion of art, which supposed to be socialist, national and modern at the same time, reflected in some institutional policies and set horizons, which would, to some extent, determine the development in the sphere of musical art. The relative change in the country's general climate (although inconsistent, albeit often misleading or even compromising in a number of ways) found expression in the attempts as well as the indisputable achievements in the introduction of new, alternative ideas both in the field of music avant-garde and in the seemingly unpretentious sphere of popular music.

Yet a number of initiatives during the 1960s stimulated the development of popular music in Bulgaria. At the end of 1959, the Bulgarian National Television was launched. In 1960, the Bulgarian National Radio's estrada orchestra was established. Among the first conductors of the orchestra were Zhul Levy, Emil Georgiev and Milcho Leviev, and in the quite lengthy period between 1965 and 1988, Vili Kazasyan. The Golden Orpheus International Pop Song Festival was held from the mid-1960s. The Bulgarian State Conservatory opened a faculty for jazz and pop music in 1968. A new policy on legal opportunities for work abroad was also introduced. A number of musicians took advantage of the opportunity to play in clubs abroad, especially in the Scandinavian countries, which, in a way, stimulated the intercultural exchange. Gradually, popular music areas of estrada (pop), jazz and rock were profiled.

Shturtsite: an emblem of rock culture in Bulgaria

The alternative nature of rock, at least in its ‘classic’ forms, brings with it a kind of non-conformity. And it was precisely the prohibitions, restrictions and censorship that somehow stimulated the socially engaged messages in this kind of music. This circumstance perhaps presupposes the fact that rock turned out to be the most dynamic and penetrating form of youth culture during socialism, articulating ideas of an entire generation and shaping to a great extent the identity of young people. In spite of the oversight, prohibitions and centralised regulatory measures, the rock bands which emerged in the early 1960s got the fruits of the British rock invasion as well as the previous rock ’n’ roll repertoire of the 1950s, motivated by the releasing energy perceived, seeking refuge for the teenage dreams in a music not quite known but kindling the senses and imagination (see Levy Reference Levy1992). Although the motivations in that kind of inclusion had different nuances in the East and the West, the parallels in that direction were obvious in a number of respects.

Founded in Sofia in 1967 by Kiril Marichkov Footnote ⁴ (bass, vocals, keyboards), Petar Tsankov (drums), Petar Gyuzelev (guitars, vocals) and Veselin Kisyov (guitar, vocals), ShturtsiteFootnote ⁵ acquired a huge popularity still the same year after their first success: the song ‘Byala tishina’ [‘White Silence’] by the composer Boris Karadimchev, contributed also by the lead vocalist Georgi Minchev who took part in the group, won the national award of Zlatnia Orfei/the Golden Orpheus festival. Apparently Still then Shturtsite had their own strategy against the repertoire restrictions. In public places, they performed songs by well-known professional composers (e.g. Boris Karadimchev, Atanas Boyadjiev and Peter Stupel), and unofficially, bypassing the official instructions, they played covers of favourite current, mostly British rock hits.

In his book on the rock music observed in the Eastern bloc Timothy W. Ryback notes how Bulgaria's 1960s supergroup Shturtsite survived the cultural turmoil in the late 1960s. He points out that ‘Shturtsite found itself squeezed by cultural restrains between 1971 and 1973’ and ‘in 1974 … courted official favor by incorporating Bulgarian folklore and socialist polemics into their repertoire’ (Ryback Reference Ryback1990, p. 120). Ryback does not miss noting that ‘despite these concessions, Shturtsite retained a distinctly Western sound, drawing liberally on the heavy-metal sound of Deep Purple. Bulgarian officials, satisfied with Shturtsite's new sound and image, allowed the band to record on the Balkanton label and to tour extensively’ (Ryback Reference Ryback1990).

Whether or not Bulgarian officials were content with Shturtsite is a matter of discussion. In any case, Ryback apparently missed noticing two important points. First, at that time the global interest towards folklore (especially non-Western) had become a significant aspect of the hippie culture, as well as of the Western culture in general. Thus, in this sense it is not quite logical to see any form of particular conformism on part of Shturtsite, moreover folk patterns were not at all typical for their musical stylistics. As to the socialist polemics in their repertoire, it should be remembered that some of the ideological slogans at that time (like ‘make love, not war’) linked with the movement against the war in Vietnam, were equally important on both sides of the Iron Curtain. As the founder of Shturtsite Kiril Marichkov (guitar, vocal, songwriter, arrangements) talks about the group's early days and its efforts to find a way to national media channels, ‘we had allowed ourselves to slip into the official entertainment business unscathed’ (Marichkov Reference Marichkov2023, p. 249). On the one hand, this really brought definite advantages in terms of possibilities to make records and to tour extensively. Yet on the other, ‘television and radio let us know that if we want to play our songs, we should only work with established Bulgarian composers … We … succeeded not only we were ambitious, musical and intelligent, but also because we had the stable support of our parents’ (Marichkov Reference Marichkov2023).

In fact, it must be pointed that Shturtsite were not the only rock band that got access to national media. The truth is that they really had the creative talent to develop a new subversive sensitivity and a lounging for democracy, based on pleasing music, which – even though experiencing the strong influence of current favourite rock bands – managed to find a clearly recognisable music language and style, welcomed by wide circles of young audiences. Besides, it is important to remember that most of their early songs, even though written by professional composers, were actually arranged by Marichkov himself and members of the group.

The group achieved its independent position as well as social and artistic maturity in the early 1980s. It created its own material in the native language, based on poetic current messages, presented sometimes through the language of Aesop, as sounded in the albums Dvadeseti Vek/The 20^th Century (1980), Vkusat na Vremeto/The Taste of Time (1982), Konnikat/The Rider (1985) and Musketarski Marsh/Musketeer March (1987). As the leader of Shturtsite Petar Gyuzelev (guitar, vocal, arrangements) points out, ‘during those years, rock music had also changed and we had to look for a new sound … I started studying the playing styles of Santana, Chicago … And in the group itself we had endless arguments about what music to make. We went through Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd. What was before Woodstock was gone. The songs gave way to the tracks. The sound was getting more and more overwhelming and that presented us with the problem about the instrumentation. If in the 1960s the melody and harmony led the perception of this music, in the 1970s they were only one of the components. The arrangement and the sound came to the fore’ (Yanev Reference Yanev1998, p. 102).

Following the logic of its social and aesthetically alternative values, Shturtsite were among the most important artists who stimulated the political climate that led to the wind of change in 1989. In 1990, the band released their final single ‘Az sum prosto chovek’ (‘I am just a human’) which became a popular anthem for Bulgarian democracy in the 1990s.

FSB (aka Formatsia Studio Balkanton): experiencing the challenge of progressive rock

At the end of 1975, the editor-in-chief of ‘Balkanton’, the only record label in Bulgaria, entrusted a modern equipped studio to three students from the Academy of Music: Rumen Boyadzhiev (vocals, keyboards, songwriter, arrangements), Konstantin Tsekov (vocals, keyboards, songwriter, arrangements) and Alexander Bakharov (bass guitar, vocals). Their ambitions, and a little later also of those who joined the group, Ivan Lechev (violin, guitar) and Petar Slavov (drums), far exceeded the notion of routine studio work. FSB musicians had professional musical education – something that until then was relatively uncommon among musicians in rock bands. The modern technical equipment of the studio for its time was a favourable condition, which proved to be a strong impetus in the intention regarding FSB, ‘the mastery and development of the electronic sonority in Bulgarian popular music’ (Rupchev Reference Rupchev1999, p. 187). A significant place in their work was occupied by experiments in the field of sound expressiveness, assimilation of the potential of electronic technologies, ‘working with the studio as a tool’ and a significant interest in new aesthetic ideas. Certainly, the reasons in this regard were not limited to new technologies. The new type of literacy, as well as the unrelenting taste for experimentation, multiply the possibilities for creative achievements, as well as for achieving widely impressive modern stylistics. The gravity between ‘art’ and ‘pop’, understood in a broad enough sense, brought the group exceptional popularity. In this sense, FSB became the Bulgarian band that gave the most tangible meaning concerning the idea of progressive rock.

Founded in 1976 as a studio group, FSB changed in a radical way the notions of rock music. It joined the progressive rock line, i.e. the expanding of the usual rock stylistics through the adoption of classical, jazz and folkloric means of expression. Achievements in that direction were seen still in their first album, Non Stop (1979), as well as in the album Kalboto/The Ball (1980). Rumen Boyadzhiev (the founder of the group) often commented that the group aimed to stay in the territory of progressive rock, which besides being very modern at that moment, fully corresponded to the attitudes and taste of the FSB musicians.

In addition to their concept albums, designed in the field of rock music, FSB was directly involved in the creation and recording of the output of a number of pop artists at the time. In this sense, it exerted a crucial influence on the direction of the modernisation of the Bulgarian pop sound, i.e. in the direction of an updated sound of a significant part of Bulgarian pop music from the late 1970s and 1980s. As the influential radio musicologist Yordan Rupchev claims, FSB reformulated the Bulgarian pop sound (see Rupchev Reference Rupchev1999, p. 74).

FSB laid the foundations of a group with milestone importance for Bulgarian pop music in general. Fans of progressive and space rock, they were inspired by bands like Gentle Giant. With the arrival of Ivan Lechev (guitar, violin) and Petar Slavov (drums), the group finally completed its line up. On 1 February 1983, their first concert took place in the hall of the Central Student House of Culture in Sofia. This was followed by a tour and extremely successful concerts at some stadiums, where thousands of people joyfully greeted their favourites.

Some critics define FSB's music as a wide range of currents with a predominance of melodic art-rock and characteristic frequent use of many electronic instruments and computers (Lukanov Reference Lukanov2018: 67). At the same time, it was clear from the very beginning that Rumen Boyadzhiev, Konstantin Tsekov and Alexander Bakharov as a rock trio confused the public's and critics’ ideas about the possibilities of progressive rock to influence, about the philosophy of ‘art’ as culture, for the perspectives of the unique Bulgarian folklore in the field of another, so different musical territory.

Some of their songs become a musical medium that combines various cultural-semantic signs in a common field intertwining elements of ‘rock’, ‘folk’ and ‘art’. Their compositions are usually distinguished by a broken musical language: sophisticated harmonic sequences, fifth–fourth sonorities, interesting ‘runs’ into a distant chord – something that brings the ‘effect of contradicted expectation’ and pushes the musical process in the direction of the less predictable.

FSB's music, seen in both the prog covers they performed and in their own original material. points to several important features. In a number of its compositions, FSB is looking for the originality of the local sound, achieved mainly through the interpretation of elements related to a rather generalised idea of the sound of Bulgarian folk. The weaving of Bulgarian folk intonations related to the sound of specific folk instruments or a folk choir is rather indirect, veiled. Here can be mentioned compositions such as ‘Culboto’ [‘The Globe’], ‘Pupesh’ [‘Melon’], ‘Niama kak’ [‘No Way’], ‘Visoko, visoko’ [‘High’] and ‘Pesen’ [‘Song]. This line in the music of the FSB illustrates in a special way a creative attitude in terms of the global–local relation. Such a dialogic perspective is not a new phenomenon in the field of rock music. What is new, however, is the way this dialogue combines the notion of modern Western sound with a peculiar allusion to traditional sound elements. The synthesis in the music of the FSB stands on an extremely broad stylistic basis. The mixing of techniques and intonations from the sphere of jazz, rock, classical music, funk, disco, Latin American music and Bulgarian folklore is typical. Harmonic language is often quite broken and unpredictable, taking the chord progression to more sophisticated and less expected combinations.

Special attention deserves to be given to the original selection of percussion instruments and their creative, resourceful treatment. Here, ‘classical’ instruments (flute, violin), folk ‘blends’ (kaval, bagpipes, folk choirs) and synthesisers characteristic of progressive rock are combined with the special use of percussion instruments. FSB arrangements usually treat the instruments less ‘soloistically’, and more discreetly – as an expression of the search for melodic, rhythmic or sonorous nuances. The staccato breaks of Petar Slavov's drums are sometimes preceded by pauses, which creates a feel'ing of a sharp ‘invasion’ at the moment of their sounding. The ‘art’ orientation in FSB's music is also visible in the band's attitude to the song lyrics. Among the preferred authors of poetic lyrics are Daniela Kuzmanova and Mihail Belchev famous with their sophisticated abilities to express particular contemporary impressions.

Looking at the general contribution of FSB concerning the development of Bulgarian rock music, it would be fair to conclude that the band did not perform any direct subversive, oppositional role in the verbal context of the 1980s socialist culture. Their creative role is seen first of all in the creation of a versatility that not many Bulgarian bands ever achieved and a new, up-to-date musical aesthetics which might be successfully compared with some of the high-ranked contemporary artistic achievements observed in Western rock world. While having in mind the most slippery of all possible conditionable comparisons, one might say that their contribution perhaps somehow reminds the role of the 1967 Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper in the context of the Anglo-American rock narrative.