Author: Lyubka Lipcheva-Prandzheva
Paisii Hilendarski University of Plovdiv
Published in: Slavyanski dialozi, XVI, 2019, 24
Abstract: The essay reconstructs the double dialogue maintained by the editorial team of the most widely read women’s magazine in Bulgaria – on the one hand, by means of the power mechanisms it was directly ideologically subordinated to, and, on the other, by its readers that it aimed to “educate”, but whom it also attempted to influence to “listen to”, to keep track of, and to a certain degree to follow. The analysis centers on the issue of active reading and its internal motivation. The practice of reading their favourite magazine gives socialist women a chance to regard themselves, with minimum efforts, as modern, emancipated, successful women who simultaneously maintain a range of social roles: as professional women, mothers, wives, “public activists”. This image provides the desirable and highly prestigious identification matrix, while the magazine is undoubtedly successful in vesting it with “reality”.
Key words: women’s magazines, mass culture in totalitarian regimes, women’s social roles, reading and identit