June Poetry Readings
IN TRIBUTE TO HRISTO BOTEV

Event date and time: June 2nd, 2004, 6pm
Location: MURGASH Art Gallery, 6 Murgash Str. , 1000 Sofia

Piercing alarms go off and bring back stories about air raids and wartime premonitions. Traffic is frozen: anxiety slowly builds up . It 's June 2nd, and it is noon: this time of the year when Bulgarians commemorate the heroic death of those who fought for national independence. Celebrations start the the night before June 2nd and the National Assemby Square is their traditional setting. National Guards, all lined up and silent, embrace the solemn voice of a presenter who reads out slowly the heroes' names. There's patriotic fervor in the air ... as tradition would have it. Year after year monuments would be raised to celebrate June 2nd. And heads of state would make special effort to inaugurate them, year after year, on that same day.

Traditions have changed. Piercing alarms went off for a second time on June 2nd last year, and that second time was late afternoon and inside the Murgash Gallery in Sofia. A tape recording of the original alarms was played while representatives of the gay community in Sofia were reading poems from Hristo Botev, the internationally acclaimed Bulgarian poet. Each reader performed in a separate exhibition hall, all of them accompanied by the sound of alarms. Viewers kept silent during their somewhat funny tours from one hall to another. And listened. It was not easy to sort out the feelings and responses, coming out from inside. Traditions were clearly not what they used to be. The performers went through the last verses of Botev's poems as the alarms, in their turn, died away. Silence, applauses and ... the sound of red wine, poured into glasses, to help gallery guests come through the informal reception that followed. It was true. Things may change in a moment.