“What does this history have to do with me?”

This is a question we hear more and more often from the young people we talk to about communist Bulgaria. The second edition of 10.11 Festival explores possible answers through theatre, film, installations, workshops, city tours, discussions and the history of food under socialism.

This year, the festival is part of a larger initiative: together with like-minded people, we are laying the foundations for FACADE, a future museum of communist Bulgaria. We want to create an immersive space where archival documents and objects meet personal stories and difficult questions.

People have different memories of those 45 years. For some, it was a time of repression. Others remember security, predictability or simply their own youth. Sometimes these memories coexist within the same family, even within the same person. How can we listen to these experiences without distorting the historical facts about the regime? How can we talk about repression and the absence of freedom with people who say, “Still, not everything was bad”?

Yet these questions are not just about history. We can easily be misled when our understanding of the past comes only from family stories, political slogans and social media posts. It then becomes harder to recognise propaganda, threats to freedom and populist promises.

That is why we need more spaces for conversations about communism. Conversations that make room for historical facts, as well as the questions people bring to them through their own life experiences and the stories passed down by their relatives.

We need to hear from those who experienced repression while we still have the chance to speak with them. We need to explore how family and entrepreneurial traditions, forcibly interrupted by the regime, are being rebuilt, and how the trauma of persecution against minorities is passed down through generations. We need to talk to teachers who encounter different versions of the past in their classrooms. And, above all, we need to give young people the space to ask their own questions.

What have we inherited from the regime? Why does State Security continue to feature in conversations about the present? Why do we still not have a museum of communism? And how can understanding this history help us defend our freedom today?

From 4 to 15 November, we invite you to explore these questions and seek answers together.