I hail from a generation that graduated high school in the 90’s. That coincided with the transitional period in Bulgaria between communism and a democratic society.
One of my unforgettable childhood memories is the day of November 10th, 1989. I still recall myself sitting in the living room with my mother and watching something unbelievable-there was a live coverage on the national TV of the regime change. Todor Jivkov, the long term communist dictator was being replaced peacefully, mind you, and a new leader was being elected! We saw the long time dictator Todor Jivkov sitting in the sidelines, pitiful and humbled for the first time in our lives.
The reason this memory has stuck with me is that up until then, his name (Todor Jivkov) was spelled with reverence and fear. He was the ultimate ruler-the “chosen one” to give us guidance and wisdom and there was not even a thought of the possibility of changing the status quo.
When I was very young I had a chance to be a Bulgarian communist “pioneer”-it was an approximate equivalent to the “Boy Scouts” in the US. I was proud to be one. Aside from the mandatory indoctrination It gave us a “purpose” in life to be good people and useful to society. I had given a pledge to do honorable things and I was serious about it.
When the change of November 10th, 1989 came about in Bulgaria it was a total surprise. No one had ever thought of challenging the regime. The truth is that Bulgaria from the early 80’s was in fact doing quite well in comparison to other countries from the Eastern Block. For instance Poland was going through a tremendous economic hardship, Romania was in the middle of a “economic belt tightening” and the Soviet Union itself was experiencing significant difficulties in meeting its obligations in its war in Afghanistan and the military race with America. In reality Bulgaria was doing well based on preferential agreements with the Russians and its tourism which was thriving as a popular summer vacationing spot for all eastern countries, not to mention the increasing travel from Western Europe.
The truth to be held is that the political change in the Eastern Block was sparked by the development in the Soviet Union. Mikhael Gorbachev’s initiatives of “glasnost” and “perestroika” caused a tremendous ripple effect on all nations that were under communist dominance at the time.
It had appeared that the Soviet leadership had instructed its cronies in Eastern Europe to reform and adopt a “social-democratic” agenda. The fact is that some eastern governments as the one in Bulgaria took that directive from the “supreme” soviet power literally. So the communist party there decided to weather the storm by proactively initiating the peaceful coup d’etat of November 10th, 1989.
Shortly after, the ruling party declared the opportunity of a national consensus via the so called “Round Table” (which by the way could be implemented in Egypt in order to get all opposing parties together in an open discussion) and national free elections were called. The communist party simply changed its name to the “Bulgarian Socialist Party” and performed exactly in the line of directions given earlier by Gorbachev. It became a social-democratic party that “cared” about people and won the elections in 1990. Being very young at the time but already understanding things in politics I was appalled at the perspective of living in a “quasi” communist and semi socialist state.
The former communists and new “pseudo-socialists” decided to explore the opportunity of gaining wealth while they had a chance of being in power. The following years bore many an example of the so called “privatization” of state owned factories and industries, being run down in order to be purchased below market value by individuals “approved” by the regime. The pillaging of the economy caused it to finally collapse during the unfortunate government of Jan Videnov.
The opposition forces gathered together and decided to take a stand and bring a change to the already disgruntled country. The college students took to the streets of the capital Sofia, built barricades and refused to go back to their Universities until the government resigned.
I was a sophomore in the University of National and World Economy in 1997 and participated wholeheartedly in the democratic uprising. We gathered in downtown Sofia and demanded the resignation of the government. We built barricades on the famous “Orlov Most” or “Bridge of Eagles” in the middle of Sofia and faced riot police. It’s interesting that the government forces-both police and army actually refused to fight the demonstrators and this caused the socialist government of prime-minister Jan Videnov to fall.
We the students who made that government change happen were extremely idealistic and democratically leaning. We thought that a new era was coming as now Bulgaria could truthfully embark on a path of sincere democratization and development.
Unfortunately the years to come proved that the Bulgarian society had not grown to the challenge. What occurred was a criminalization of the nation as such. The so called “groups” of criminals led by former government security individuals and “wrestlers” from the sports community of all people created clandestine economic and later political pressure formations to take advantage and go on a foray of economic grabbing. This is the time of the infamous “insurance” agents who would steal your car if you don’t pay an indemnity to the “insurer”. The “groups” of economic interests blatantly went on a rampage to secure all financially viable enterprises.
That’s the time a large number of people from my generation decided to vote with our feet and left our home country. We just didn’t think at the time that it was worth “tilting at windmills” as in Don Quixote and decided to leave and pursue other opportunities.
In the years to follow, just to make the circus complete, the former king Simeon Saxe-Koburg decided to participate in the Bulgarian political development. The people thought that he would bring a stable and clearly pro-Bulgarian stance, as the general populace still had some fond memories of his father- King Boris III who was extremely popular in the country. It turned out however that “king” Simeon had an agenda of his own-namely to re-acquire the properties his family had lost during the communist regime. His unpopular governance led to another power shift with the formation of the triple coalition of Simeon’s party, socialists and DPS (Movement for Rights and Freedom)-the organization of the Turkish minority.
These are the years when corruption and ill-management took firm hold of the Bulgarian reality. The criminalized entities grew wealthier and bolder in their stance. Daily show murders became a reality of life for many Bulgarians.
Additionally the society grew quite cynical and started using profane language that I would have been ashamed of if used during my youth years. People lost faith in government, police and values and started looking for “alternative” ways of making ends meet since the official power holders didn’t seem to care.
Ultimately Boiko Borisov’s GERB movement came into the picture. He seemed to be the resolution to all previous deficiencies-he was tough talking, meaning business type of a leader. In fact he adopted somewhat of a “Vladimir Putin” aura with his pro-Bulgarian nationalist talk and anti-mafia rhetoric. The warning signs flashed immediately after his ascendance to power however. Mr. Boiko Borisov is a “private security” specialist and long term protégé of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It is inconceivable that his “company” Ipon-1 didn’t get involved in the mafia wars that occurred in Bulgaria in the 90’s and the beginning of the 21st century. Mr. Borisov is using some sort of pseudo nationalistic stance against Bulgarian minorities as Roma and Turks which seemed to fit in somewhat with the general Bulgarian public at the time. The truth is that the society as such is far from nationalist and Mr. Borisov’s attempts at that are quite artificial and frankly dangerous. Bulgarian society is in fact quite tolerant and forgiving. I can attest to that as my family hails from the area of Nikopol on the banks of the river Danube where Bulgarians, Vlachs (Romanians) and Turks have lived together in harmony for hundreds of years. It was common for Bulgarians (Orthodox) to visit Muslim Turks for Ramadan and vice versa Muslims to visit Bulgarians for the Feast of Saint George in May.
What Mr. Borisov is doing is inciting a religious and ethnic intolerance in the Bulgarian society in hope that this tension would give him an upper hand while imposing his regime upon the people.
Additionally he seems to be an absolute dilettante in terms of International Relations. When he came into power he decided to suspend or revise the ongoing international projects including the Nuclear Power Station in Belene, the Bourgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline and the South Stream gas line. Interestingly enough all of the aforementioned projects had some degree of Russian participation. This could and would cause a significant change in the Russian strategy towards Bulgaria. It is rather inauspicious that just recently Russia decided to pull out of financing the Belene Nuclear plant. It is obvious that the price of the endeavor is not the deciding factor-even junior students in International Relations know that building of nuclear plants is the Russian way of Realpolitik-as we have seen it in Iran, Armenia and Belorus-in diplomacy it is often referred to as “quid pro quo”.
The fact that Bulgaria is losing potentially economically important source of income has quite ominous signs for the general state of relations between Russia and Boiko Borisov (I detest referring to the country with Boiko Borisov’s name but that’s the reality).
Currently my contemporaries from the “lost generation” that left are performing rather well in Belgium, the United States, the UK and Australia.
We will always wonder if we could have made it in Bulgaria if we had stayed. The thought will always haunt us-probably for the rest of our lives.
The reality is that we who left had an opportunity to learn new skills and be able to think “outside of the box”. We are the true “unorthodox” Bulgarians who can bring change one day. We hope that such day will come and we’ll be able to help with our democratic knowledge and expertise. We “the lost generation” have not fallen through the cracks, we won't give up, yes we can and yes we will succeed however daunting our plight might be.
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