May 30 6:30 PM The Voev Phenomenon by P. Kanev at Art Bar 158 Between Bach and swing – an undiscovered, unknown, unrecognized or forgotten Dimitar Voev – come and discover and rediscover or remember him together in a performance with a presentation of the book “The Dimitar Voev Phenomenon. The Transformation of the End of the World”,
Dimitar Voev (1965-1992) is known to some as a “cult figure” of the latest Bulgarian culture; to others – as a musician from the late 1980s and frontman of the legendary bands “Kale”, “Wocek and Chugra” and “New Generation”; to others – as an inimitable poet and author of strange, “surrealistic” texts, defying genre definitions; to others he is almost an idol; and to many people he is actually completely unknown.
The spectacle “The Voev Phenomenon” on May 30, 2025 will immerse us in the inimitable poetic world of one of the brightest representatives of “alternative culture” in Bulgaria. And the alternative that Dimitar Voev embodies in his work and in his seemingly short life has already passed the “test of time” and continues to be relevant even after the end of the twentieth century, perhaps because in its essence it is “beyond time”. It stands for:
- painful truthfulness as an alternative to lies;
- radical honesty as an alternative to hypocrisy and amorality;
- boundless imagination as an alternative to stupidity;
- personal position as an alternative to the herd position;
- personal dreams (dreams and nightmares) as an alternative to “greenhouse life”;
- sarcastic to the point of absurd humor as an alternative to “stupidity on a throne”;
- the suffering in the soul as an alternative to soullessness and spirituallessness.
Contrary to superficial opinions, Dimitar Voev is not and has never aspired to be a “subcultural artist”. The cultural alternative that he defends and represents is Culture itself as an alternative to vulgarity. Although associated with legendary scandals and “informality”, as he matures he strives to achieve increasingly “serious” classical perfection in his art and as much publicity as possible in his appearances – concerts, festivals, interviews, sound recordings, videos, drawings, stories, poetry, drawings, strange surrealistic tales and photographs. The watershed of the change in his aspirations for self-expression is also directly stated on May 30, 1987 in his “programmatic” poem “New Generation Forever”: the goal is “to enter the cultural temple”; and at the same time, to enter there not alone:
…
,,I waited so long,
five, six centuries.
I am coming with you.
Give your hands, everyone!
Kneeling, standing, walking,
crying, real, flying.
Let us all together make
one Great,
who will enter the cultural temple.
And so, holding hands together,
we begin to howl
like a herd of hyenas,
which remained:
Always!
Always!
The purpose of my book “The Phenomenon of Dimitar Voev” is to draw attention to the “unknown” and “underrecognized” dimensions of a significant and unique creator of symbols, who has become both a symbol “beyond his time” and a cultural phenomenon of recent Bulgarian history.
Voev’s fairy-tale world humanizes by cultivating the spirit. But why does it happen that Voev becomes a phenomenon? What he has done so much, isn’t it the same thing that is characteristic of every authentic artist – including the completely unknown, and in general for every mentally and spiritually healthy person – and there are thousands of such. Why then did Voev become a cultural phenomenon? Maybe because of the peculiarities of his personality and character, maybe because of his great love, maybe because of his great misfortune, maybe because of the need to have just such a hero as Voev – and most likely because of all of this, taken together. And maybe it is also because of a howling prophecy, a testament from the future. Like every great Poet, Voev also has clairvoyant insights. But what is even more significant in this case is that he without a shred of doubt believed in them as a child – that is why they turned into truths. But it is hardly only because of that – it is certainly also because of personal morality, a worthy personal character. And the “probable improbability” is not excluded, as Chugra says in the film “Voev”: – “that there is such a thing as genius, I know.”
“Paper boats in the basin are jumping… Let’s give them freedom…”
We will hear an echo of his voice together – in a different reading, never heard before, we will immerse ourselves and experience his creativity and personality, and his dream, we will remember Words and stories that we seem to have heard and others that we haven’t, in images that seem to have dreamed, in thoughts that shake and shake the dormant feelings and make them dance – on the way to the horizon, “in the direction of the sunset”…
Beyond death. Something.
I
In an ancient manuscript found in a cave somewhere in Judea, it is written:
“From the egg of the sacred bird, as big as the sun, a boy and a girl will hatch. They will be brother and sister, man and woman, and they will mark the beginning of the new humanity. They will have a gender, but they will not know it and use it, because their meaning will be different. All worthy people will be their children, because they will not have children. Their names are Jon and Anna. They will be birds, but no one will know, because they will be human in appearance. Only one will recognize them and want to destroy them…”
Here the manuscript ends. Too bad.
II
- How will we know the end of the world? – the students ask.
- You will know by this, when Nature begins to prostitute herself
then the end has come – the teacher answered.
- She was rich. Enviably rich, he continued. But for a long time Nature has been progressively impoverishing. The time has come when she begs. She knocks from door to door and begs for alms. That is now. But people give her very little. Most of them simply reject her. They are so used to seeing her on television and on colored cards that when they see her at their own door they do not believe her at all and are rude to her. I met her on the street once. She looked quite bad. Dressed in old clothes with greasy stains on them, she was stretching out her hand. It seemed to me that most people passed her by. I passed her by too. Later I regretted it. I have never seen her again. Now I know that people are afraid of her. She is moving further and further away from them. The time will come, and this is certain because I have read it, but I will not tell you where, when Nature will start to prostitute herself. This will be her last attempt to become rich again and be with people. Then the end of the world will come.
Dimitar Voev, from: Beyond Death (1992)