More than victims of the state: a visual archive of queer desire in socialist Bulgaria
Abstract
This paper challenges deficit narratives that reinforce a problematic West/East binary and frame queer life under state socialism as uniformly repressive. Drawing on more than 16,000 photographs from the Bulgarian Visual Archive, it develops a queer analytical lens informed by queer visual studies, post-socialist historiography, and queer Marxist theory, to argue for a more nuanced understanding of queer life and desire during the period of state socialism. The analysis reveals moments of homosocial intimacy, gender fluidity, and collective joy which demonstrate that queer lives and desires were not marginal, but deeply woven into the fabric of everyday state socialist experience.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Historical Gender and Feminism Studies
Decolonial Thought and Epistemologies
LGBTQ Health
Identity
and Policy
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Visual Studies
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Volume
- 41
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 565–580
- Publication date
- 30 January 2026
- Language
- EN