Ragaru, Nadège. Justice in Mantle Coats.

In 1944-45 the Bulgarian People’s Front undertook legal action against the former regime officials for war crimes, and made extensive use of visual evidence. The chapter focuses on politization of the legal sphere — the construction of justice as an event. It examines ‘justice in action’ through the aperture of courtroom protagonists, from pleas to sentencing, and the afterlife of the images tied to the trials in the political and social arenas. The chapter departs from previous literature that focused on  Bulgarian trials as retributive cleansing, or as expressions of corruption of justice.

This chapter forms part of the following edited volume: Eric Le Bourhis, Irina Tcherneva, and Vanessa Voisin (eds.), Seeking Accountability for Nazi and War Crimes in East Europe: A People’s Justice? (Rochester NY: University of Rochester Press, 2022).

Nadège Ragaru, “Justice in Mantle Coats: Shooting the Bulgarian People’s Courts in Revolutionary Times, 1944-1945,” in Eric Le Bourhis, Irina Tcherneva, and Vanessa Voisin (eds.), Seeking Accountability for Nazi and War Crimes in East Europe: A People’s Justice? (Rochester NY: University of Rochester Press, 2022), 31-77.