The officer or Julia Kristeva: my choice

by Petya Vladimirova

In Paris, according to the environment in which you find yourself, you will hear three names of Bulgarians as a sign of courtesy, knowing that you are a Bulgarian: Hristo Stoitchkov, Julia Kristeva, Tzvetan Todorov. When I read yesterday that Julia Kristeva, the Bulgarian born in Sliven, who has achieved a brilliant scientific career in Paris, author of thirty philosophical books and novels, was a collaborator of State Security, I was surprised

Later, I read that she had not written any documents in the archives where she was appointed as a State Security collaborator. [Committee for State Security, Komitet za Darzhavna Sigurnost was the secret service of the People's Republic of Bulgaria.] After reading the reports of the agents in the dossier unprecedently published by the Commission, I told myself "With such a law on the Darzhavna Sigurnost Archives we created in Bulgaria, the truth is not only inaccessible, but even worse, such a law corrupts our senses for good and evil.

Such a law leads us into the absurd situation of constructing an opinion not on the basis of the truth of the action but on the basis of evaluations of the State Security institution, which we simultaneously declared amoral and repressive, but we accept the criterion to "accuse" according to the same repressive machine that we condemn at the same time. And after a large amount of archives was destroyed in 1990. Social networks are saturated with accusations, by accusers or defenders, creating a comfort for the immorality of the same power that points immorality by throwing it to the crowd. And in this case - what luxury booty ...

The archive does not show that Julia Kristeva cooperated with State Security. Not only it doesn’t contain any text written by Kristeva, but the numerous reports, notes and documents published by the commission revealed that until 1971, when she was, according to this commission, spied on constantly. Should this be negatively written on her account - she was spied on ? And that she was a member of Komsomol? She met the agents sent to Paris - but there is no indication whether she knew who she was meeting or not. It does not even appear on file if she was aware that she was given the name "Sabina". She was happy to meet Bulgarians, that is written in the reports - I too would have been happy if I had left the country as legally as she had left for Paris. Who could study in Paris without the blessing of State Security, ask the accusers? But she had gone to Paris with a French and non-Bulgarian scholarship.

The only reference which, according to the agent who wrote this document, shows that she would have understood what kind of conversation she is conducting with the man Lyubomirov, is dated 4th March 1971, and I quote: "She asked not to insist to write information because she will not say anything important, and therefore she insists on verbal communication." And the officer continues, note how: "In the documents I note the assessments and tasks assigned."

The agent does not specify which evaluations he "notes" - his or Julia Kristeva's. This is the case of the reports of all Paris-based state security officers who echo conversations with Kristeva. But I ask most innocently: even if the officer would have noted the "evaluations" of Julia Kristeva herself - since when and by what moral or legal law the assessments of events - political and artistic events, - tastes and the enmities, that is to say the opinions and not the actions, are they a sign of good and evil, of justice and guilt? Kristeva would not have appreciated Louis Aragon, writer and activist of the French Communist Party, and she would have told the agent, now her judges are indignant, should she say that she appreciates it to be excused? She would have been a woman of the left - what a shame for the right so crystalline and incorruptible today!

In Paris in the 60s of the last century, when Julia Kristeva saw her stormy youth, all the intellectuals are leftists. The cinemas are full to see Godard's modern film "La Chinoise" or his films with the unforgettable Anna Karina. Maoists and Trotskyists disrupt the Orthodox Left of Communists and Socialists - talking in crowded cafes. And in the University of Nanterre, we hear the rumbling of student riots against the regime of plutocrats, very peculiar thunder, which, like the strikes of the unions, even scares the intellectual controversies in the cafes between the smoke of cigarettes ... Julia Kristeva, the Bulgarian with sharp senses, bubbling with vitality and curiosity is there, in the "eye of the storm", with the writer Philippe Sollers ... And not only there, while she was an attractive target for State Security agents. According to the published documents, however, I can not conclude whether it is true what the Bulgarian officer sent from Paris and quoted earlier in his report of 4 March 1971. I am not worn to accept that she collaborated with the State Security, to facilitate her career in Paris - I wonder how this Committee of State Security would have helped her for a career in Paris! On May 5, 1973, the Chief of the First Headquarters of the State Security Committee approves in the form of a decree the agent's proposal to discontinue the maintenance of "Sabina" (uncertainty why her file is named "in development" ) In the absence of "results, because of reluctance on her part and the desire to legalize contacts." In 1975-1976, various officers called her on the phone, but it was not clear from the reports whether she knew they were agents and if they played cat and mouse.

After reading each piece of the file, my choice is infinitely easy. I choose Julia Kristeva. With his Parisian youth.

 

 

Petya Vladimirova, Dnevnik, Дневник, 31.03.2018