Liberation or occupation? A scandal in Sofia.

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An exhibition from a historical occasion provides for tensions between Bulgaria and Russia. The events of 75 years ago and the following 45 years are not processed in Bulgaria still.

Pro-Soviet Bulgarian soldiers at the beginning of September 1944

“If a pedestrian is crossing a dangerous intersection. From the right, a brown ‘Opel is coming to‘ with a high rate of speed on him. Then a faster-moving red ‘Moskvich‘, which drives the pedestrians on the spot to cripple, and the brown ‘Opel‘ to scrap suddenly comes from the left. The pedestrian, 45 years confined to a wheelchair. Another 30 years later, the new owner of the ‘Moskvich host‘ an exhibition under the Motto: How the Moskvich the pedestrians in front of the Opel saved.” View of the political scientist Daniel Smilov for the DW describes the dramatic developments in Bulgaria, exactly 75 years ago, and its Echo today.

From fascism exempt?

On 5. September 1944, the Soviet Union, Bulgaria declared war on. The previously very good relations with Bulgaria to Germany were canceled. Although Sofia was ready to declare Nazi war on Germany, occupied by the Red army on 8. September, the country. The next day, the legitimate was weggeputscht Bulgarian government of a few officers, and Communists. The country was for 45 years a faithful satellite of Moscow. Until the political turnaround in 1989, the official reading of history in Bulgaria and in the Soviet Union was: “The glorious Red army liberated Bulgaria from fascism”.

75. The anniversary of the events of 1944, the Russian cultural centre in Sofia on 9 is. September 2019, with an exhibition under the title “The liberation of Bulgaria” will open. This exhibition is the Bulgarian branch of the exhibition “75 years since the liberation of Eastern Europe from Nazism,” said the organizers. The Bulgarian foreign Ministry has not found this, however, is not in order, and issued a protest note in an unusually sharp Tone. To “without the contribution of the USSR to the victory against Nazism in Europe, we must not close our eyes to the fact that the bayonets of the Soviet army have made a half-century in Eastern Europe, only for repression, oppression of the bourgeois conscience, the deformation of the economic development and the isolation of the dynamic developments in the more advanced European States,” is to be read in the Note. The Bulgarian Ministry of foreign Affairs called on the Russian Embassy, “the questionable historical Thesis (the ‘do not support liberation‘) to”.

In Russia, the Bulgarian ghosts

This reaction came to many observers to be quite surprising. Because the EU – and Nato-member country, Bulgaria is always very careful towards Russia. The last President of the Bulgarian Tsar Boris III died in 1943 after a Meeting with Adolf Hitler under mysterious circumstances, is attributed to a sentence, the reserves for many Bulgarians to today its validity: Bulgaria must be “always with Germany, never against Russia”. To this day, the attitude of the Bulgarian population is divided over Russia dramatically. The current government in Sofia supports the EU sanctions against Moscow, but at the same time you are flirting with the Russian energy projects in the country and maintains a distance to the accusations of Western countries against Moscow because of the attempt on the agents Skripal in England. The Rulers in Moscow have pointed out in the last few years that you can expect from Sofia no unfriendly Gestures.

Sofia in September 1944 – Acclaimed reception of the Soviet army

According to the Note to the Bulgarian foreign Ministry, there was a corresponding reaction on the Russian side. The scientific Director of the Russian military historical Museum, Mikhail Myagkow, told the official Russian news Agency TASS, the leadership elites in Bulgaria would try to forget the history of the Great Patriotic war and to relativize the role of the Soviet Union as the liberator of Bulgaria from Nazism. The Russian Senator Vladimir Dschabarow put even. The allegations that Moscow had installed an occupation regime in Bulgaria, were unacceptable, he said to the Russian channel RT TV. The Bulgarian President has to respond, so Dschabarow.

Bulgaria as a 16. Republic of the USSR?

The Bulgarian historians is quite different. In a DW Interview, Lyudmil Spassov, to Plovdiv, Professor at the University speaks of a Soviet occupation of the country: “In the following almost 50 years after, in 1944, ruled in Bulgaria, Moscow-the puppets, the set multiple times, even the existence of the Bulgarian state in question. I mean the Attempts of Bulgaria as a seventh Republic of Yugoslavia, or as a 16. Republic to the USSR suit the songs.”

Kalin Yanakiev, a Professor at the University of Sofia, also criticised the resentment of many Bulgarians, the events after the 9. In September of 1944, interpreted incorrectly: “In comparison to other countries, such as Poland, the Czech Republic or Hungary, is not processed in Bulgaria, the Soviet Aggression still. Many people have begun to feel a nostalgia towards the ‘socialism‘, it is always a fight about what exactly the students about these pathetic and degrading period of time should learn in the Bulgarian history.”

The Russian exhibition in Sofia and planning is in accordance with the 9. September opened. And in October, the mayor, elections will be held in the Bulgarian capital. The right-wing conservative government of Boiko Borisov wants to see in any case, the own candidate Jordanka Fandakowa re-elected. A consolidation of the Russia-skeptical voters would be useful, commented the political scientist Daniel Smilov, compared to the DW. The socialists supported a candidate Maya Manolowa is considered to be Russia-friendly. The sharp Note of the Bulgarian Ministry of foreign Affairs could be considered against this Background, as a support for the Borisov-candidate, so Smilov.