Dangerous Liaisons: Disinfo in Bulgaria Increasingly Targets Culture and Education

High police presence, tension and unpredictability in the air, followed by physical altercations between enraged nationalists and people… who were queuing to enter Sofia’s sold-out National Theatre. The play that was scheduled that night was Bernard Shaw’s play Arms and the Man, directed by John Malkovich, one of several projects the famous actor/director had in Bulgaria in the past two years.

Shaw’s satirical and anti-war work from 1895 is set during the Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885, and that was enough to trigger Bulgaria’s far right. On the opening night of November 8, theatre goers and even well-known intellectuals were battered and bruised by the crowd after major pro-Russia party Revival and marginal far-righters staged the protest, forcefully blocking the entrance.

Surprised but still keeping a good spirit, Malkovich only said that this is a “strange situation” and declined to outright condemn the movement against him, commenting on both the unrest and a question from the audience about Donald Trump’s recent comeback in the White House: “I’m pretty much an apolitical person, I retired from voting in 1972. I don’t believe politics are about solving our problems, I believe they’re about the acquirement of power and wealth”.

Bulgaria’s culture wars are likely to escalate

For liberal-leaning citizens, the demonstration against Malkovich comes in line with the previous efforts of the nationalist, far-right and often pro-Russia movements to instill division in Bulgaria’s anyway fragmented society – pretty much all of them successful, not particularly challenged by opposing parties or authorities.

Earlier this year, Revival – with the curious support of leading party GERB which, despite its reputation as being a corrupt party and its populist leanings, is formally aligned to Brussels – were instrumental into making the parliament adopting a controversial amendment to the Law for Pre-School and School Education which prohibits “propaganda” for “non-traditional sexual orientations” in schools (what is peculiar about this amendment is the fact that there was no talk about a sexual education reform, and no campaign to promote LGBT rights in schools). This also caused protests, including from school teachers. In turn, online nationalist groups started distributing personal details and data around the teachers in order to intimidate them.

The LGBT+ topics have been an arena for conflicts in the past few years. In a disinformation narrative that was carried out in a similar way in Romania, in the summer of 2023, screenings of Belgian coming-of-age drama ‘Close’, months after the local premiere of the movie, were suddenly boycotted in Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna. The nationalist crowds, partly connected to Revival, claimed the Lukas Dhont-directed film promotes paedophilia rather than the actual semi-autobiographical story of two 13-year old boys whose friendship turns cold after homophobic remarks in their school surroundings. The altercations were investigated by the police but no charges were made. The Ministry of Interior has also declined to investigate the clashes in front of the theatre this month, highlighting a tendency for the police forces to close their eyes when far-righters take the streets.

Nationalist radicals feel the momentum

Earlier in 2024, a documentary movie was also in the centre of heated debates. A movie about ‘Historical Park’ – a tourist entertainment site near Varna which glorifies Bulgaria’s historical past, channels the culture heritage into a more medieval direction and offers numerous attractions on the promise of healthy living – which has been investigated as a Ponzi and extortion scheme, which suddenly became in the centre of a controversy when reports started indicating that there is pro-Russia paramilitary training happening there.

Meanwhile the shareholders formed a nationalist party called ‘Greatness’ which has entered the parliament twice despite internal conflicts and with a campaign, mainly carried out on their own social media channels.

Locally well-known YouTube content creator Lyubo Zhechev made a full-length documentary about the issues and stories surrounding ‘Historical Park’ and the Greatness party, in a rather comedic manner: the video was quickly banned from YouTube after a big number of alerts, several of the people interviewed wanted to be edited out little after the premiere of the movie in October and Zhechev was eventually questioned by the police. The movie eventually re-appeared on YouTube.

While the affairs around the site have been probed by the Prosecution but investigated at a slow speed, Zhechev claims ticket buyers have received calls from the police about how they obtained them.

These events come to indicate that amid Bulgaria’s ongoing electoral spiral (the stalemate started in 2021 and is likely to mark the political landscape in 2025), the nationalist factions are in a non-stop campaign.

It has worked more than well for Revival: the party, marginal before topping the antivaxx movement of 2020-2021, entered the parliament in November 2021 with 4.86 per cent and by October 2024, came third with 13.7 per cent of the vote.

2025 is likely to be shaped by disinformation narratives surrounding anti-euro currency (Bulgaria is yet to adopt the singular EU unit) and calls for ‘foreign agents bill’, initiated again by Reviva. After seven elections in just three years, Bulgaria’s EU-aligned parties are at opposite ends. Amid the chaos, along with Revival, several others nationalist parties with regressive political agenda made their way to the parliament - the above-mentioned Greatness as well as newcomers ‘Moral, Unity, Honour’, both a product of well-carried campaigns on TikTok, Telegram and YouTube. So far, the nationalist/semi pro-Russia wing of the parliament has no ambition to unite and there is a competitive element in their relations; but in terms of populist actions and controversial bills, they will likely unite in the expected direction.