Vladimir Mitev: ‘It is an interesting utopia that the development of our region should take place in ensemble, in dialogue and mutual enrichment’

Interview on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the website ‘dVersia’-about its role in Bulgaria,changes in the Bulgarian and Romanian progressive space over the last 10 years and today's utopias

Photo: (source: dVERSIA)

Kalina Drenska, dVERSIA, 11 May 2025

In 2025, dVERSIA magazine will publish a new issue. Dversia is celebrating its 10th anniversary! To mark this occasion, we are publishing a collection entitled ‘It can be done, it can be done differently…’, dedicated to utopias and radical imagination. At the same time, to mark this milestone anniversary, we asked our contributors to answer a few questions about today’s diversions and utopian potentials. We are publishing their answers in full, with minimal stylistic interference, and we thank them for their time! The launch of the collection ‘It can be done, it can be done differently…’, the discussion around it and the celebration will take place at 17 May 2025, at 6 p.m., at the National Student House, Sofia. You are welcome to attend!

dVERSIA: What is the role of the magazine dVERSIA in the Bulgarian public and activist space in recent years?

Vladimir Mitev: As far as I know, in recent years there has been only one functional universalist Facebook group in Bulgarian progressive circles that brings together different people and tendencies – and that is the group ‘dVERSIA: Discussions for Deviation’. Again, around the dVERSIA circle, end-of-month meetings have emerged in Sofia, which I have not yet attended, but which, like the Facebook group, are an opportunity for communication and can give participants a sense of community. The role of dVERSIA magazine and its circle is to be a nucleus for such communities, a centre for progressive discussion and a space where we can find out what is happening in the narrow progressive space in the country.

Are there any pieces and/or issues of the magazine that have made a strong impression on you? Which ones and why?

The series of translated pieces about the Romanian movement for the right to the city and the right to housing, the articles about the protests in Serbia in recent years and other publications related to civic activism in our region are, in my opinion, important contributions to our public space. In Bulgaria, there are almost no civic movements or grassroots activism. Only recently have some such organisations and communities emerged on feminist and migration issues. But in general, this is one of the big differences between Bulgaria and other countries in the region – the fact that in our country there is too much trust in political power as the only way to solve public problems, that social capital in Bulgaria is low and, when someone does accumulate it, he or she turns out to be co-opted by the political power, that people and citizens often feel powerless and fail to defend and realise their rights, including because there are no organisations and media outlets to share knowledge and experience.

Do you have an interesting, funny, unexpected or remarkable story that you associate with dVERSIA magazine? If so, we would love to hear from you.

The story is nothing particularly remarkable, but I think readers will find it interesting that dVERSIA magazine, and more specifically its issue on cinema, found its way to Bucharest and to one of Romania’s most important film critics, who also speaks Bulgarian – Marian Țuțui. And this was not just a courtesy gift – Marian is also someone who would be greatly appreciated by the dVERSIA circle, because he has left-wing convictions, thinks critically, is an internationalist, but also knows the Balkan spirit well, which, among other things, contains anarchism.

What has changed in the Bulgarian left over the last 10 years? And what are your hopes for the future?

I hope that one of the changes is that we are looking less and less for saviours and people to throw ourselves into ambushes for, only for them to discredit us by taking controversial geopolitical or other positions. I believe that a left-wing current is increasingly taking shape in our country, for which being left-wing does not mean being against American democrats, Soros and the European Commission – in other words, we realise that the “left” is not a Cold War position which would continue unchanged 35-40 years after its end (and is currently manifested mainly by the far-right political forces in the region), but rather an affiliation to a certain type of thinking and action that has existed in the West and is linked to humanism, social change, citizen empowerment, etc.

The other change I associate with the emergence of grassroots movements – such as the feminist movement, the migrant rights movement and the housing rights movement (although it seems too early to call the latter a movement).

I believe they have a lot of room for growth and I hope that in the future they will find broader support in the country and around the world, that they will find funding for their work without losing their independence and without compromising their principles, that they will become more sophisticated in their actions and thinking, etc.

I do not believe that the Bulgarian left should fight for a small political hegemony of its own and dominate each other with the major political hegemonies of other political tendencies, always being the losing force. Representatives of progressive forces in Bulgaria would gain if they had the ability to transform what they probably consider to be a retrograde trend in Bulgarian society. In this regard, international contacts and technocratic/expert knowledge should, in my opinion, be allies of the Bulgarian left, not constructed as their adversaries.

I hope to see more and bolder progressive initiatives in the future – including businesses, communities, cultural movemenets, scientific conferences, podcasts, etc. – that will reveal and realise the potential of this trend. In this regard, the experience of Romanian progressives may be interesting. For example, Romania has a strong political/social theatre, and in some cases its directors have also become directors of state theatres. There is a generation of people in their thirties and forties who have grown up over the last fifteen years in political theatre communities – as spectators, actors, etc. Some of the directors and actors from this movement are now mainstream artists in Romania.

There are film directors in Romania who have progressive beliefs – Radu Jude and Vlad Petri, for example – and some of them have consistently won international film awards. There are also film critics with progressive beliefs. There are civic movements for the right to the city and the right to housing, for the rights of migrants and homeless people, for the rights of neurodivergent people, for the rights of Roma people, and so on.

There is left-wing media, some of which is satirical in nature. And so on.

Of course, in Romania, as in Bugaria, the left is in crisis and politically too weak to enter parliament. But in Romania there are many other ways in which a person can realise their progressive convictions. And we arrive at a situation where the University of Sibiu and some faculties of the Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca are dominated by left-wing tendencies, which also allows institutional resources to be used to support progressive events.

Where do you draw your hope for the future? Is there room for utopias today?

I find hope for the future in my activism as a journalist, in my international contacts and experience, in the fact that I can learn new things from them.

I also ask Ricardo Petrella the question about utopias at the end of this interview with him.

For me, an interesting utopia is linked to the development of people in our region into a ‘whole’, in dialogue and mutual enrichment – and not, as in previous times, competing and wasting our energy on getting in each other’s way. In other words, a possible utopia lies in our region – Central and South-Eastern Europe – not so much in the governments as in the people – professionals in a particular field, but also ordinary citizens, with practical experience and awareness as a community, which gives them additional energy and new experience.

We, Bulgarians, must preserve and increase our potential, but life in Bulgaria often wastes and destroys it without us even realising the damage done. If we can find resonance outside Bulgaria, we will be able to grow our potential and support others outside the country to do the same. I believe that, over time, this can lead to a new situation where people in Bulgaria also feel that we have something to contribute. And it is preferable to pursue regional and global utopias than to lose faith, become cynical and complain about the omnipresent problems in our country – the lack of resonance, of committed attitude, of enthusiasm among people when they do not see their personal and material interest in them.

In my opinion, the greater the utopia, the greater its potential for emancipation.

I see how difficult it is for something new to happen even in relations between two neighbouring peoples, the Bulgarians and the Romanians, and this is when the geopolitical context of these relations is positive. Nevertheless, I believe that utopia or the idea of a ‘dynamic identity’ in Central and South-Eastern Europe is quite modest compared to what the alter-globalists proposed 20 years ago – a globalisation of people, not of corporations, governments or oligarchs. When we in Bulgaria develop a global utopia and begin to realise it, our massive transformation will begin. As long as we insist on playing the role of proxies, we will be mired in the logic of transition.

Žižek has a book called In Defence of Lost Causes. I think sometimes lost causes are the greatest school. I say this as someone who speaks Persian and has a personal blog about Iran and the Middle East. Our world will never change unless we realise the wisdom in the phrase “I believe because it is absurd”.