9th World Festival of Youth and Students

9th World Festival of Youth and Students
Host country People's Republic of Bulgaria
Dates28 July - 5 August 1968
MottoFor Solidarity, Peace and Friendship
CitiesSofia
Participants20,000 people from 142 countries
Follows10th World Festival of Youth and Students
Precedes8th World Festival of Youth and Students

The 9th World Festival of Youth and Students was held from 28 July to 5 August 1968 in Sofia, capital city of the then People's Republic of Bulgaria. The festival attracted 20,000 people from 138 countries.[1] Initially, the event was planned to be held in Algeria in the summer of 1965, but due to the military coup in that country the date was postponed, and Bulgaria became the new venue for the festival.[2]

The festival took place at the height of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and due to the Sino-Soviet split, no Chinese delegates were invited to Bulgaria. However, a group of German Maoists attended. They disrupted the opening ceremony of the festival, shouting the name of Chairman Mao and waving his portrait.[3]

It was rumored by local fans that The Beatles offered to play at the festival,[4] but it was turned down by the organising committee.[5]

The song "Ogromnoe nebo" ("Tremendous Sky"), performed by Edita Piekha, received several awards: a gold medal and first place in a political song contest, a gold medal for performance and poetry, as well as a silver medal for music.[6]

  1. ^ "Chronology of World Festivals of Youth and Students". Archived from the original on 2011-05-14.
  2. ^ "わたくし斎藤さんがAGA治療にオススメするプロペシア時々ミノキシジル". www.fmje.org (in Japanese). Retrieved 2017-10-25.[permanent dead link]
  3. ^ Smith, Andrew (2019). Which East is Red?. Paris: Foreign Languages Press. pp. 48–49. ISBN 978-2-491182-00-7.
  4. ^ "Страната на красивото надрусване!" Могла ли е София да се напълни с хипита през 1968". Свободна Европа.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. ^ Becker-Naydenov, Patrick (12 November 2021). "The Three Seasons – Prague Spring, World Youth Summer, and 'Sofia Autumn,' or: The Anti-Event, the Avant-Garde, and the Beginning of Bulgaria's New Folklore Wave". Musicology. 32 (2): 49–58. doi:10.2298/MUZ2131049B. hdl:21.15107/rcub_dais_12520. ISSN 2406-0976. S2CID 246060458.
  6. ^ Огромное Небо. In Russian.