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Articles by Dimiter Kenarov
Sesso e socialismo in Bulgaria
Il capitalismo arrivò insieme al mio primo orgasmo. Era l’inizio degli anni novanta e io ero un innocente ragazzino delle medie, confinato con i miei genitori, altrettanto innocenti, in un prefabbricato di cemento a Sofia, in Bulgaria. Come tutti gli edifici del quartiere, sembrava una lapide residenziale. Vivevamo sotto una campana di vetro. Ma i “cambiamenti”, gli eventi che seguirono al crollo dei regimi comunisti dell’Europa orientale alla fine del 1989, erano già in corso.
La nuova frontiera del disordine bulgaro
Mentre l’aereo cominciava la discesa verso l’aeroporto di Sofia mi sono sporto per guardare fuori. Campi grigi e chiazze spelacchiate di terreni postindustriali incolti punteggiavano i margini della città. Poi ecco spuntare i dedali dei palazzoni dell’era comunista – gli stessi palazzoni in cui ero cresciuto – seguiti da accozzaglie ancora più vecchie di tetti con le tegole rosse.
Come scorre la vita nell’Ucraina lontana da Kiev
La maggior parte dei mezzi d’informazione ha descritto l’Ucraina come un paese saldamente unito contro l’aggressione della Russia. Com’è evidente, le azioni del presidente Vladimir Putin, contrariamente ai suoi obiettivi, hanno consolidato un’identità ucraina precedentemente eterogenea.
All Quiet on the Southwestern Front
Most of our media narratives about Ukraine have been of a country firmly united against Russia’s aggression. As anyone would readily acknowledge, President Vladimir Putin’s actions, contrary to his goals, have greatly consolidated a previously fractured Ukrainian identity. The courageous conduct of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has become an inspiration for much of our rudderless, leaderless world, has further rallied people around the blue-and-yellow flag.
The lives and deaths of Georgi Markov
On 7 September 1978, while crossing Waterloo Bridge in London on his way to work at the BBC, the Bulgarian writer and journalist Georgi Markov was shot in the right leg with a 1.52-millimiter poisonous pellet by an undercover agent of Bulgaria’s intelligence services. He felt a slight sting and didn’t think much of it. But that evening, he began to show symptoms and his condition quickly deteriorated.
The Exuberance of Ivo Dimchev
In the past few years, Dimchev, an openly queer artist in a relatively conservative and patriarchal country, has improbably become one of Bulgaria’s most famous singer-songwriters. As a performer, he slides effortlessly between masculine and feminine modes; his vocal range is equally protean, moving from a low baritone to a soprano embellished with theremin-like vibratos.
Spring 2013
Spring 2013 The Business of Literature Volume 89, Number 2 Richard Nash on the publishing industry, technology, and future of the book A VQR roundtable with industry innovators on how writers can flourish in the digital age Kevin Young on the damaging impact of fake memoirs Julia Cooke on the fine line between friendship and journalism in Havana [toc] Table of Contents Print: $14.00 Digital: $14.00 Fall 2020 Citizenship in the 21st Century Summer 2020 Summer Fiction Spring 2020 By Richard...
A Captivating Mind
How Georgi Markov became the truth-teller of Bulgaria’s communist era, and paid for it with his life. fb tw mail Print msg wa sms Bookmark Georgi Markov, mid-1960s (Luben Markov) Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue.
Chronicle of a Death Foretold: Georgi Stoev's Gangster Pulp
Georgi Stoev plundered his past in the Bulgarian mob to write a series of popular pulp novels. The mob found them good enough for him to die for. fb tw mail Print msg wa sms Bookmark Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue.
A Threat to Public Order
Or, How My Love of Belarusian Tractors Got Me Arrested by the KGB Originally published in The Virginia Quarterly Review (Fall, 2011) Read this article in Slovene in Global (May, 2012) Read this article in Italian in Internazionale (3/23 August, 2012) From the Soviet Union they sent us a Belarus tractor, a pretty one with a plow. —Bulgarian song The author making phone calls from his hotel room in Minsk. (Image: Jason Motlagh) One of my earliest memories is riding a Belarus tractor.
Negative Monuments
They blew up the mausoleum—or tried to—during a live broadcast on Bulgarian national television on August 21, 1999. It was a hot and cloudless day in the capital city of Sofia, perfect weather for a demolition. Ten years after the collapse of the country’s Communist regime there was still unfinished business to take care of.
The Theater Tsar
“I have called you together, gentlemen, to communicate to you a most unpleasant piece of news: an Inspector is coming to visit us,” says Anton Antonovitch, the corrupt mayor in Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector, one of Russia’s most famous and beloved plays. The plot revolves around the arrival, in a provincial town, of a foppish young man who is mistaken for an important government official working undercover.
The Mask of Sanity: On the Trail of a Serial Killer in Macedonia
1 He makes a left turn, then a right one. Then left, then right again. Left, right—his car marches through the streets of Kičevo, zigzags, as if descending an endless stairway. “Here he made a left turn, and here he made a right one,” Saša explains to me, but keeps his eyes fixed on the road in front of us, his hands busy on the wheel. Saša Dukosi is a longtime reporter for Macedonian radio and television, but today he is my tour guide.
A Captivating Mind
Luben Markov lives in a house of memory. The coffee table in the upstairs living room is strewn with letters, newspaper clippings, typewritten manuscripts and court decisions; video and audio recordings are stashed in the cabinets of an antique sideboard; bulky ring binders, organized by year, line one of the walls in the room next door; along a staircase, several wall-mounted shelves buckle under the weight of books on communism, totalitarianism and Soviet-era intelligence services.
Was the Philosopher Julia Kristeva a Cold War Collaborator?
I first came across Julia Kristeva’s name in the late nineties, when I was a teen-ager, on the masthead of a small Bulgarian newspaper, Literaturen Vestnik, to which I had just begun contributing. She had joined the editorial board in 1995, in a purely symbolic capacity: her name was meant to lend cachet to the obscure cultural weekly, published in Sofia, where Kristeva and I grew up.
Crimea: Putin’s Peninsula Is a Lonely Island
SIMFEROPOL, Crimea — “Dear guests and residents of Crimea,” intoned the stern female voice of the airport announcer in Russian, as passengers from the most recent flight from Moscow waited in the baggage claim area. “Please, be aware that Ebola is a life-threatening disease with mortality rates of up to 90 percent.
Putin Is My Sugar Daddy
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine — The statue of Lenin, facing Maxim Gorky Street in downtown Simferopol, stands proudly on a red marble plinth. A large basket of fresh red carnations lie at the base — taped above, a handmade poster reminds passers-by: “Don’t touch our leader.” The weather is rainy and cold, but it hasn’t stopped a small crowd of pro-Russian protesters, who have gathered for a rally in defense of the statue, which, rumor has it, “the fascist scum” from Kiev plans to topple soon.
Watching Gogol in Simferopol
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine — On the eve of the Crimean referendum, while the world anxiously awaited the climax of Ukraine’s political drama, I went to Simferopol’s Crimea Russian Drama Theater to see a production of Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector.
To Fight the Coup, Erdoğan Adopted Tools Pioneered by Protesters
Last night, for the second night in a row, I stood in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, watching several thousand revelers, mostly religious conservatives, celebrate the failed coup attempt against the country’s elected government.
Pop-Art Radovan | VQR Online
Radovan Karadžić was once feared as the Butcher of Bosnia. Now you can tour his favorite hiding places. Poster of Radovan Karadžić outside a McDonald’s in Belgrade (Dimiter Kenerov). Giggles. The Serbian journalist sitting next to me leans over and whispers into my ear, “This is embarrassing.” One of the cameramen—there are four—asks Draga, our tour guide, to please repeat her opening words, so he can get her on film. She complies cheerfully.
Ending Crimea’s Isolation
Geographically and politically secluded, blithely unaccountable to the outside world and sometimes even to Moscow, Crimea has become the perfect breeding ground for large-scale corruption, profiteering and human rights violations — a kind of black site, inaccessible to international monitoring organizations and beyond the reach of law.
Ukraine’s Serengeti is a stunning refuge for zebras, buffaloes, and wildebeests on the edge of a war zone.
Fifty-nine years old, with tousled salt-and-pepper hair, small lively eyes, and a hooked nose peering over a bushy mustache like a bird from its nest, Gavrilenko is the director of Askania-Nova, the oldest steppe reserve in the world.
Ukraine’s Serengeti is a stunning refuge for zebras, buffaloes, and wildebeests on the edge of a war zone.
Each Friday, Roads & Kingdoms and Slate publish a new dispatch from around the globe. For more foreign correspondence mixed with food, war, travel, and photography, visit their online magazine or follow @roadskingdoms on Twitter. ASKANIA-NOVA, Ukraine—Viktor Gavrilenko charges across the Ukrainian steppe at nearly 60 miles an hour.
The Ukrainian Serengeti
Bordering war-torn Crimea, the world’s oldest steppe reserve—home to zebras, buffaloes, and wildebeests—fights for survival. ASKANIA-NOVA, Ukraine— Viktor Gavrilenko charges across the Ukrainian steppe at nearly 60 miles an hour. His rickety, dark green Lada bounces wildly over the parched grass and kicks up clouds of dust as we overtake terrified herds of buffaloes, zebras, wildebeests, and antelopes.
The Mushrooms of Donbas
Originally published in Poetry International, 10.02.2015. Photo: Velko Angelov About a year ago, Ukraine – and Europe – changed dramatically. What was initially a peaceful protest in Kiev against corruption and nepotism suddenly turned violent. The police used lethal force against protestors, killing about 100 people. Facing a full-blown revolution, the president Viktor Yanukovych fled the country, and a new government took power.
Longform’s Picks of the Week
Every weekend, Longform highlights its favorite international articles of the week. For daily picks of new and classic nonfiction, check out Longform or follow @longform on Twitter. Have an iPad? Download Longform’s new app and read all of the latest in-depth stories from dozens of magazines, including Foreign Policy. “An Exclusive Look at Sony’s Hacking Saga” by Mark Seal, Vanity Fair.
Putin’s Peninsula Is a Lonely Island
SIMFEROPOL, Crimea — “Dear guests and residents of Crimea,” intoned the stern female voice of the airport announcer in Russian, as passengers from the most recent flight from Moscow waited in the baggage claim area. “Please, be aware that Ebola is a life-threatening disease with mortality rates of up to 90 percent.
FP’s Handy State of the Union Viewing Guide
As his approval ratings jump to as high as 50 percent thanks to a growing economy and steadily declining unemployment, President Barack Obama is expected to focus heavily on domestic policy in tonight’s State of the Union address rather than foreign policy, where crises around the world have raised doubts about the administration’s capacity for handling challenges ranging from the Islamic State to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin.
Dashed Hopes in Gay Ukraine
KIEV, Ukraine — It was a quiet evening in late autumn, perfect for going to the movies. Kiev’s Zhovten (October) theater, the oldest one in the city and a favorite with art-movie buffs, was showing a new French film called Les Nuits d’Été (Summer Nights), about a married man in 1950s France who leads a perfectly normal life — except that every weekend he goes to a cabin in the forest, where he dresses up as a woman.
Is This Part of Ukraine on the Brink of Ecological Disaster? | The Nation
Standing in the dry bed of Kuyalnik Estuary, Alexander Nikolaevich, head of transportation at the local sanitarium, is desperately looking for mud. It is already September, but the summer heat would not let up, the midday sun harsh and relentless. Much of the water in the estuary has evaporated, exposing a wide expanse of flat, clayish bottom encrusted with snow-white salt and the crooked wooden pilings of old jetties.
‘All We Can Do Is Try to Defend Our Families’
BAKHCHYSARAI, Ukraine — The room looks like the basement of a frat house. Food scraps and half-empty plastic bottles are strewn across decrepit school desks. A disco ball hangs limply from a hook in the middle of the ceiling. Dirty, tattered curtains cover dirtier window panes, as men come and go, pacing across the room. There are no parties here.
Tongue Oppressor
By Dimiter Kenarov March / April 2012 3002 words Last summer I traveled to Belarus on assignment for The Virginia Quarterly Review. It was the most bizarre reporting trip I had ever made. Following a series of misadventures, during which my passport mysteriously went missing, I was apprehended by operatives from the KGB—as the security services are still called in that part of the world—and after a grueling interrogation, locked up in solitary confinement.
Back in the USSR
A child holds her pet badger on the playground of the Chernigovsky block of Slavutych, a city erected by the late Soviet government to house the plant workers and their families after the Chernobyl disaster. (By Maisie Crow) Twenty years ago, the most grandiose political and social experiment of the twentieth century, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, came to an end. It was a slow and painful death; there was no Soviet 9/11, no sudden implosion of illusions amid smoke and rubble.
A Threat to Public Order
From the Soviet Union they sent us a Belarus tractor, a pretty one with a plow. —Bulgarian song The author making phone calls from his hotel room in Minsk. One of my earliest memories is riding a Belarus tractor. My grandmother was the mayor of a small village in Communist Bulgaria and, being her favorite grandchild, I seemed to wield enormous power over all municipal employees. To be on good terms with me was a smart career move.
The Mask of Sanity
On the Trail of a Serial Killer in Macedonia Originally published in The Virginia Quarterly Review (Spring, 2009) This article also appeared in Spanish, in the Peruvian magazine Etiquetta Negra (September 2009). Click here to read the PDF version. 1 He makes a left turn, then a right one. Then left, then right again. Left, right—his car marches through the streets of Kičevo, zigzags, as if descending an endless stairway.
Game Over, Perseverance, All I Want Is Everything: Among the Roma of
Stoyan is the mayor of Hope. He is also its doctor, social worker, psychologist, marriage counselor, teacher, judge. At ten o’clock on a sweltering June morning, I find myself in Stoyan’s office, a tiny room in a one-story, derelict house with barred windows. The walls have been recently painted bright pink, like a nursery for a baby girl. But instead of a crib, there is a bulky wooden desk, bare but for a rotary phone left over from the bureaucracy of a former era.
Out of Exile - Boston Review
“Why are you going?” I asked although I shouldn’t have cared. “Several of us are going—publishers and agents. Just to check out the literary scene. Find some young Bulgarian writer. Imagine, at the moment there isn’t a single Bulgarian on the market. Do you know any? The most important thing is that he should be young and good-looking!” “Why? What are you, literary agents or pedophiles?” I burst out. “Ha ha!” she laughed heartily. “Pedophiles!” —Dubravka Ugresic, Thank You for Not Reading
Out of Exile - Boston Review
“Why are you going?” I asked although I shouldn’t have cared. “Several of us are going—publishers and agents. Just to check out the literary scene. Find some young Bulgarian writer. Imagine, at the moment there isn’t a single Bulgarian on the market. Do you know any? The most important thing is that he should be young and good-looking!” “Why? What are you, literary agents or pedophiles?” I burst out. “Ha ha!” she laughed heartily. “Pedophiles!” —Dubravka Ugresic, Thank You for Not Reading
The Little Box That Contains the World
Serbia After the Death of Miloševic Originally published in The Virginia Quarterly Review (Summer 2006) I had taken them for hookers, but they were just ordinary smugglers. Mid-thirties, peroxide hair, tight counterfeit Levi’s and pink blouses: the two women eyed me with suspicion as I settled back in the shabby carmine plush of my seat.
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