HOUSING IN SOCIALIST BULGARIA: APPROPRIATING TRADITION

This analysis of how Bulgaria coped with socialist modernization in the field of housing takes the concept of "consumption regime" as its point of departure. Applying the lens of "regulated consumption" (as opposed to a laissez-faire regime) allows a differentiation between state care and state control. Bulgarian housing policy relied on the of the state as the main actor. The article Ice argues that this state did not contradict traditional values in Bulgarian: society but made conceited efforts to meet the essential wishes of the people vis-a-vis their home. During the late 1940s and 1950s, this tradition was reflected in the way construction was organized as well as in the types of housing provided. By contrast, in the time of socialist large-scale slab building (from the 1960s to 1980s) this tradition was reinterpreted to cover favorable conditions of loans for housing-in the first place for building second houses (villas). The regulation of housing supply through the use of tradition explains the very high percentage of private housing in Bulgaria after the fall of socialism. Housing in socialist Bulgaria corroborates the argument that the appropriation of tradition is an important factor in the domestication of socialist modernization.