site.btaLIK Magazine Editor-in-Chief Georgi Lozanov Addresses BTA, BNR Anniversary Event in London

Assoc. Prof. Georgi Lozanov, Editor-in-Chief of LIK Magazine, said: “Today, many Bulgarians live and build their careers in the West. That is why I see events like this one as small unifications between territorial Bulgaria and Bulgaria without borders.” He addressed, via video conference, an event organized by the Bulgarian Cultural Institute (BCI) London, led by Director Svetla Dionisieva and collaborators Miglena Rogacheva, Diana Spasova and Yoana Peeva. The event is dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the publication of the first issue of BTA's LIK magazine for literature, art and culture and the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR).

The hardest competition is with yourself, said Lozanov. The magazine had a near-mythic status during communism, which is both a privilege for its sequel today and a challenge to live up to the expectations created when LIK was the only window through the dense information curtain drawn over Western culture.

I remember, for example, that it was through LIK I first learned the name of Iris Murdoch and felt the closeness between literature and philosophy. Or about David Hockney, whose hyperrealism offered an alternative to the realism we were taught in school. Or the idea that Shakespeare might not have been just one person, or even that Shakespeare might not have been Shakespeare. It was astonishing for us, who were used to viewing cultural authorities as icons, beyond dispute or differing opinions.

LIK introduced an entirely different way of thinking, one that connected us to Western culture. That was immensely important, because our connection to it had been deliberately broken. We weren’t supposed to have anything in common with it, to belong to Western culture, but instead to some kind of anti-Western, Eastern, or any other ideologically acceptable alternative.

The thing is, that same dilemma remains to this day. Bulgaria’s belonging to Western culture continues to be hidden or at least is not supposed to be too visible. 

And yet, that connection has existed ever since the Liberation from Ottoman rule, when the new cultural, political and business elites went to study in the West. Upon returning, they brought with them modernism and, more broadly, the modernization of Bulgarian society. Conversely, every effort to block that process has always come from the political East. So it is again the role of LIK today to explore our integration into Western culture.

We dedicate issues to artists like composer Pancho Wladigueroff, painter Dechko Uzunov, and poet Atanas Dalchev, figures who, even under communism, remained connected to Western culture. And I believe that LIK’s most essential task is to continue, albeit in a different form, to serve as such an integration mechanism.

Even more so because today, many Bulgarians live and fulfill their potential in the West. That’s why I see events like this one as a way for Bulgaria as a territory to unite with Bulgaria without borders. Such a unification can only happen in an open world, and not when everyone is staring at their own - national - navel.

In this sense, the Bulgarian News Agency has become, to a large extent, an institution of cultural diplomacy, and LIK plays a role in this mission.

Allow me to wish you happy unification!