STURSHEL SATIRICAL NEWSPAPER – POLITICAL TRANSITION AND HUMOUR STANDARDS

Abstract

The article focuses primarily on the Bulgarian satirical newspaper Sturshel (Hornet) – the most famous and one of the longest-lasting humorous editions in Bulgaria, which was first published in 1946. During the communist regime in the country the Sturshel was an edition of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist party, which was the ruling party for 45 years. The political transformations in 1989 led to dramatical changes in the public life and the freedom of speech that had not been allowed during the previous historical period. The editors of the newspaper started their fight for independence and a few months after November 1989 the Sturshel was free from the Party’s guardianship and became one of the most trusted editions according to the statistical data and market results. Some of the short sentences, caricatures’ captions, and anecdotes published in the newspaper achieved huge popularity and many of them were turned into slogans born by people during political rallies and strikes. On the other hand, the Sturshel published many short reports from different street events and encouraged people to fight for new ethical values, based on the principles of political freedom, multiparty system and personal dignity. Laughter was used as a powerful instrument by the journalists and caricaturist to help people overcome the fear imposed by the totalitarian regime. Some of the mechanisms of this process are also analyzed in the article.