Huge Sculpture to Replace Communist's Mausoleum in Sofia

The new, 14-metre-tall sculpture by Bulgarian artist Plamen Deyanoff, called 'The Bronze House', is set to be installed at the site of the former mausoleum at Prince Alexander of Battenberg Square in Sofia by the end of the year, to mark the start of Bulgaria's first EU presidency in January.

The installation is supported by the Austrian government and the Sofia municipality and is to remain in place until the end of 2018 - the year in which Bulgaria and Austria share the presidency of the Council of the European Union.

"The use of this space in the present time will help us overcome the traumas of the past," Vienna-based Deyanoff said at a presentation of the project in front of the Union of Bulgarian Architects on Friday.

The choice of location for the installation has attracted controversy, however.

Many architects who attended the presentation of the project expressed harsh criticism for the choice, which they said they found inappropriate and provocative.

The white marble mausoleum of Bulgaria's first Communist leader Georgi Dimitrov, who also led the Communist International between 1934 and 1943, was built by the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1949.

It contained Dimitrov's remains until 1990, when they were cremated and buried in Sofia's Central Cemetery.

Following heated debates, the mausoleum was demolished by the pro-Western government of Prime Minister Ivan Kostov in 1999, despite the majority of Bulgarians opposed the demolition, according to opinion polls.

But Kostov's party, Union of Democratic Forces, or UDF, maintained a strong position that the ideological building had to go because it was a manifestation of Bulgaria's repressive totalitarian past.

After three unsuccessful attempts to...