History of Bulgarian Gerontology: Circumstances and Sources

Talk by Daniela Koleva (Sofia University) on "History of Bulgarian Gerontology: Circumstances and Sources" as part of the project "Transforming Anxieties of Ageing in Southeastern Europe. Political, Social, and Cultural Narratives of Demographic Change", funded by VolkswagenStiftung.

In her talk, Prof. Koleva will explore the emergence and early development of gerontology in Bulgaria (1960s-1970s). She will try to show and assess the role of a visionary leader, the chances offered by the post-Stalinist ’thaw’, and the importance of international developments on both sides of the Iron Curtain. She also intends to discuss how her account of the history of Bulgarian gerontology emerged and how it is dependent on the kind of sources and methods used.

Daniela Koleva is professor of oral history and memory studies at the Department for History and Theory of Culture, Sofia University. Her research interests are in the fields of oral history and anthropology of socialism and post-socialism, biographical and cultural memory, politics of memory and heritage, ageing studies, social history of medicine. She has published a monograph on the ‘normal life course’ in communist Bulgaria and a number of book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals. Her interest in the everyday life and life course under communism has resulted in a series of edited volumes, one of them international: Negotiating Normality: Everyday Lives in Socialist Institutions (Routledge, 2017). She is co-editor of Ageing, Ritual and Social Change: Comparing the Secular and Religious in Eastern and Western Europe (Ashgate/Routledge, 2013). Her latest book is Memory Archipelago of the Communist Past: Public Narratives and Personal Recollections (Palgrave Macmillan 2022).