Lloyd-Jones Antonia - Dancing bears: true stories of people held captive to old ways of life in newly free societies

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DANCING BEARS

Should be required reading for anyone hoping to understand the growing appeal of authoritarian leaders in Eastern Europe today... Combining black humor with lyrical prose, Szabowski brilliantly captures the tragic disorientation of men and women whose lives were bifurcated by the sudden collapse of Communism and ruthless onslaught of neoliberal capitalism.... A poignant allegory about the human costs of regime change.

Kristen Ghodsee, author of Red Hangover: Legacies of Twentieth-Century Communism

A fascinating and wide-ranging book that shows how, across different and diverse species, old habits die slowly, if at all. Humans, like other animals, often dont know when theyve gained freedom because conditions of oppression have become the norm and theyre unable to adjust to a newfound lack of restraint. Szabowskis clever and metaphorical use of dancing bears to make this point is beautifully done.

Marc Bekoff, University of Colorado; coauthor of The Animals Agenda: Freedom, Compassion, and Coexistence in the Age of Humans

What a gem of a book.... So eloquent and original about the psychological transition from regimes.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, New York University

A brisk narrative [and] a surprising look at societies grappling with profound change.

Kirkus Reviews

Heartrending... A sharply drawn account.

Publishers Weekly

PENGUIN BOOKS

DANCING BEARS

Witold Szabowski is an award-winning Polish journalist. At age twenty-five he became the youngest reporter at the Polish daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborczas weekly supplement, Duy Format, where he covered international stories in countries including Cuba, South Africa, and Iceland. His features on the problem of illegal immigrants flocking to the EU won the European Parliament Journalism Prize; his reportage on the 1943 massacre of Poles in Ukraine won the Polish Press Agencys Ryszard Kapuciski Award; and his book about Turkey, The Assassin from Apricot City, won the Beata Pawlak Award and an English PEN award, and was nominated for the Nike Award, Polands most prestigious literary prize. Szabowski lives in Warsaw.

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Copyright 2014 by Witold Szabowski

Copyright 2014 by Agora SA

Translation copyright 2018 by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. All rights reserved.

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

Originally published in Polish by Agora SA, Warsaw

Photos by Albin Biblom

Maps by Wawrzyniec wicicki

All images courtesy of Agora SA

This publication has been supported by the POLAND Translation Program.

Ebook ISBN 9781101993385

Cover design: Tom Brown

Cover image: Bruce Dale, National Geographic Creative

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AUTHORS NOTE

Some of the names in this book have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

Athens: Every day thousands of Greeks here dream that one day their country will finally be run by the best and happiest system: Communism.

Belgrade: For many years war criminal Radovan Karadi was here in hiding, disguised as a doctor of alternative medicine.

Berat: Here a construction worker, Djoni, smashes up the bunkers built by Enver Hoxha.

Gori: Here, in the house where Stalin was born, the generalissimos death mask is guarded by his vestal virgins.

Havana: Thousands of Cubans tremble as they hear reports about the declining health of Fidel Castro, some in horror, others in hope that the winds of change will finally start to blow on their island too.

London: Lady Perons five acres are located here, between the Victoria railway and coach stations.

Kosovska Mitrovica: Good friends Florent and Duan set off from here to distribute chickens to the Serbs who come home to Kosovo.

Medyka: Day in and day out, thousands of ants walk across the Ukraine border here, bringing vodka and cigarettes into Poland.

Narva: The capital of the Estonian Russians, where not even the police can speak Estonian.

Sierakowo Sawieskie: In the fight against poverty, the former residents of a state farm that was located here have founded the Hobbits Village. They dress up as figures out of Tolkien and invite kids to take part in field games.

Tirana: Enver Hoxha ruled Albania from here, where theres still a pyramid designed in his memory by his daughter and son-in-law.

Belitsa: This town is the site of the thirty-acre Dancing Bears Park, where the bears are taught to live in freedom.

Dryanovets: This is the home of brothers Gyorgy and Stefan Marinov. Gyorgy used to travel the Black Sea coast and the local fairs with his female bear, Vela. Stefan was an expert in the extremely difficult art of wrestling with a bear.

Getsovo: Here, in 2007, the last three dancing bears in BulgariaMisho, Svetla, and Mimawere taken away from the Stanev family.

Yagoda: A town whose bear keepers were famous, though poorer than their colleagues in the north of the country. The Bulgarians used to say with a sneer that every resident of Yagoda had a bear at home.

Loznitsa: This village was the birthplace of Pencho Kubadinski, who hid with Gypsy bear keepers during the Second World War and later became one of the best known Bulgarian Communistsa close friend and colleague of Todor Zhivkov.

Sofia: Here in the capital city, only a few years ago, you could still see bear keepers in trams, at housing developments, and even outside stores or lottery-ticket sales outlets. They played the gadulkaa traditional string instrumentand begged for handouts.

Varna, Golden Sands: Not many years ago, before Bulgaria joined the European Union, the most popular Bulgarian resorts were still full of bear keepers and their animals.

INTRODUCTION

The guy with the wacky hair and the crazed look in his eyes did not appear out of nowhere. He was already known to them. Sometimes he said how great they were, and told them to go back to their roots; if need be, he threw in some highly unlikely but madly alluring conspiracy theory. Just to get them to listen. And to give them a fright. Because hed noticed that if he scared them, they paid him more attention.

Theyd gotten used to him being there, and to the fact that now and then, with a totally straight face, he said something unintentionally hilarious. Sometimes he hovered on the fringes of political life, sometimes closer to the mainstream, but he was generally regarded as a mild eccentric.