Engineering the human soul

bulgarian children`s and young adult science fiction in the 20th century

Authors

Keywords:

contemporary Bulgarian literature, children`s and young adult science fiction, communist ideology, operational criticism

Abstract

We can trace, through the artistic worlds created by the writers between 1950 and 1989, the way in which critics perceived Children`s and Young Adult science fiction - from the instrumental of ideological education of the younger generation to a tool provoking the reader’s imagination to think about the present, its real problems and perspectives which would have an effect on the future. On the one hand, the construction of a literary-historical background ofthe period is important. It traces the ways in which the new system channels the cognitive and educational function of science fiction; the ideological problems of the time, modeled by the political, socialtransformations. Onthe otherhand, it creates conditions of a different ideological environment which creates not just alternativeness, but freedom for a critical interpretation of contemporary world.

 

References:

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Author Biography

  • Elena Borisova, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

    Dr Elena Borisova is Assistant Professor at the Institute for literature (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences). Researcher in the field of Bulgarian science fiction and Bulgarian contemporary literature.

     

Published

2025-09-18