The Cheery Asceticism in the Body Notions and Techniques

The current paper is one of the many contemporary studies of specific cultural-historical conditions and the part they play into shaping the human body. What it attempts to achieve, however, is to compensate for the lack of studies into the impact of the early communist regime in Bulgaria on the human body. Not aiming to study all possible aspects of the socialist construction of the human body, its representations and forms of social and political control, the text organizes the broad topic of human embodiment around the concept of ¿cheery asceticism¿. The expression is coined from a speech of Vladimir Illich Lenin, dedicated to ¿free love¿. The peculiar oxymoron is intentionally chosen in order to represent a focal point of early Bulgarian socialism - the communist techniques and conceptualization of the body as crucified between joy and desire suppression, cheerfulness and abstention, enthusiasm and discipline.