The beginning of the year is film awards season. After the Golden Globe awards ceremony and after the nominations were announced for this year’s Academy Awards, on Saturday 27 January, the winners will be announced in Sofia of the 23^rd edition of the Annual Fantasy and Horror Awards of the Bulgarian fantasy club The Citadel. And though the Bulgarian awards may be local, the passion and the appreciation of a story well told is just the same. This is evidenced by the over 2 decades-long history of the fan club, founded in 2001 with the idea of bringing together fantasy and horror fans in Bulgaria to discuss books, films, computer games and sword-and-magic fiction characters. Having been started on the initiative of publishers in this genre, now the community exists entirely thanks to the fans, and to the man who has been chairman of The Citadel fantasy club for many years – Alexander Draganov.  

“Our community is changing along with the genre itself, like a living organism that changes with time. When we founded our club there were so many works of fantasy that were being released in Bulgarian. Literally every month there were several new books coming out that were like The Lord of the Rings. When the focus of this kind of fantasy was lost, we too started expanding the definition and so a broader range of fantasy works were included in our collections. And of course, the rise of the Japanese anime in recent years, and the fact Bulgarian viewers and readers have grown more and more familiar with it has also made it part of our programmes and our interests.”

Still, there are things that have proved timeless and very much connected with Bulgarian fans of fantasy stories.

“Harry Potter is the most successful series in our club because we, as fans have grown together with it, it is like we went to school together. To this day, including at this year’s awards, the HogwartsSchoolofWitchcraft and Wizardry is till among the nominations,” Alexander Draganov says, and adds that the words by author Atanas Slavov that “fantasy is a vast universe, and people exist in different fantastic worlds”, describe the community of the The Citadel best.

The club has a Facebook page and a website called The Citadel, where the voting took place for their biggest event – the Annual Fantasy and Horror Awards. Every year, with no exception, and with just one virtual ceremony during the lockdown, the best books published in Bulgaria during the past year are awarded, as are as yet untranslated works as a recommendation to publishers, Alexander Draganov goes on to say.

The awards, as voted by the public, are for film, video game and fiction character, as well as for most active reader.

“It is no surprise that the category in which interest ran highest was the film of the year category - because of the nominations. One nomination is ThePope'sExorcist starring Russell Crowe, which is based on documents belonging to real-life Vatican exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth. The second nomination is for Five Nights at Freddy's starring Josh Hutcherson. The third nomination is Kenneth Branagh ‘s A Haunting in Venice which based on an Agatha Christie novel.”

Who the winner will be in this and in the other categories is something we shall find out very soon. In real life, however, Alexander Draganov’s job are political analyses and forecasts.

“Politics is definitely in the horror genre, especially in recent years. Actually, we know from The Lord of the Rings that Tolkien was influenced by the momentous events taking place around him at the time – around World War 2. And later, Joanne Rowling also wrote Harry Potter as a reaction against authoritarianism and intolerance as embodied by Lord Voldemort. Politics is part of the genre to this day,” says Alexander Draganov.

Translated and posted by Milena Daynova

Photos courtesy of Alexander Draganov, citadelata.com