should be free to choose his themes and
methods of presentation provided he remain loyal to communist ideology.

When the exposure in literature of the spiritual decline of individual
Communists and of communist ideals became too embarrassing to the
leadership, tighter restrictions were reimposed in the late 1950s. The
literature of the early 1960s has been termed cathartic. By writing
about long-suppressed thoughts and emotions, writers attempted to purge
themselves of guilt for the sins of the system that they had supported.
The poetry, which was very popular with the young, had a ring of
disillusionment and pessimism.

The government leadership did not approve of this literature any more
than it did of the literature exposing faults in the system. Rather than
repress the writers as it had done before, the regime used subtle
pressures to guide writers into acceptable subjects. What followed was a
wave of naturalistic poetry and novels dealing with purely human
problems.

THEATER

A dramatic tradition was developed as part of the National Revival.
Plays intended to arouse the people's national consciousness were
written by Bulgarian authors and staged by students and teachers at
library clubs in several cities (see ch. 11). After independence in 1878
the National Theater was formed in Sofia, but for several decades it
depended heavily on foreign plays and foreign theatrical talent. By the
start of World War II, however, government subsidies had helped to
develop it to a point where it compared favorably with national theaters
elsewhere in Europe.

The present-day government has heavily supported the theater as a "mass
school for the all-round ideological, ethical and aesthetical education
of the people." An extensive repertoire of Bulgarian plays conforming to
the demands of Socialist Realism and to the prescribed content and
interpretation has been built up. It is performed by some forty-six
theatrical companies throughout the country. Classics by William
Shakespeare, Johann von Schiller, Henrik Ibsen, Anton Chekhov, and
others are also performed regularly, as are selected contemporary plays
by playwrights from all over the world. Unlike elsewhere in Eastern
Europe, there has been no experimental or avant-garde theater in
Bulgaria.

The presentations of the Satirical Theater in Sofia are the most daring
and innovative theatrical presentations available to the public.
Although their humor is often biting, the