Article

Received 29.06.2025

Revised 20.10.2025

Accepted 23.12.2025

Published 02.01.2026

Retrieved from Vol. 28, No. 2, 2025

Pages 36 -48

Kamenov, H. (2025). Education as an instrument of ideology: The teaching of history in Bulgarian schools during socialism (1944-1989) and nowadays. Pedagogical Sciences, 28(2), 36-48. https://doi.org/ 10.33989/2524-2474.2025.2.36

Education as an instrument of ideology: The teaching of history in Bulgarian schools during socialism (1944-1989) and nowadays

Hristo Kamenov

Research into the instrumentalisation of historical education for the ideological legitimisation of power remains relevant both for understanding the mechanisms of socialist regimes and for analysing the contradictory processes of post-socialist transformation. The aim of the study was to reveal the evolution of mechanisms of state control over historical education in Bulgaria through a comparative analysis of the instruments of direct indoctrination during the socialist period (1944-1989) and hidden forms of ideologisation in the present day. The methodology was based on a problem-chronological approach, combining an analysis of institutional changes in Bulgarian education policy and regulatory acts with a study of the transformation of historical narratives and educational programmes in both periods. The results of the study showed that during the period 1944-1989, a total system of ideological control was formed in Bulgaria, based on the institutional subordination of science to the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, censorship restrictions by Glavlit, and the normative establishment of Marxism-Leninism as the only methodology. It has been established that through the implementation of the 1959 Law on the Connection of School with Life, historical education was integrated with industrial practice, becoming an instrument for fostering loyalty through labour, and the narrative was focused on the “founding myth” of 9 September 1944 and class struggle. It has been demonstrated that after 1989, there was not a de-ideologisation, but a “narrative inversion”, in which the socialist canon was replaced by the rhetoric of totalitarianism to legitimise market reforms. The analysis revealed a transformation of direct pressure into “soft” control mechanisms – the structural displacement of the topic of socialism to the end of the 12th grade curriculum, a focus on standardised exams that require memorisation of facts rather than analysis, and systematic disregard for personal sources and the traumatic experiences of ethnic minorities (particularly during the “Revival Process”), which blocks the formation of critical reflection on the past. The practical significance of the study lies in presenting a model for analysing the long-term ideological influence on education and providing tools for identifying “hidden” mechanisms of instrumentalisation 

totalitarianism; historiography; indoctrination; communism; society
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https://doi.org/ 10.33989/2524-2474.2025.2.36