Vladimir Mitev
Year after year, I discover with sadness that the Romanian press, and perhaps many ordinary Romanians, are unable to find in Bulgaria anything but “eternal Russia”. My colleague from spotmedia.ro made the commendable effort to travel from Bucharest to Sofia to compare the evolution of the two countries. The main source quoted in his report is an article in the Bulgarian newspaper 24 hours, which shows the deep disappointment of Bulgarians with the slow pace of development – something very visible in Northern Bulgaria, where I live. But there is hardly any Bulgarian voice in the article with mentioned profession, age, personal history. Instead, there is a photo of Lukoil headquarters in Sofia and a general conclusion that Bulgaria is full of Russian agents and is lagging behind because it cannot free itself from Russian influence.
In my opinion, these notions are clichéd and are intended solely for internal Romanian use – to instil mistrust towards Bulgarians. The article was published on 14.12.2023. The author could have written that, following pressure from the Bulgarian state, Lukoil announced earlier in December that it was considering selling the refinery and other assets in Bulgaria. Or he could have reflected that on 12.12.2023 the dismantling of the Soviet Army Monument in Sofia began. Or the fact that the Denkov government is actively helping Ukraine – militarily, humanitarian and economically – and strictly following the foreign policy line not of the Russian Federation but of the European Commission. But this notion of a dominant Euro-Atlantic trend in Bulgaria would not correspond to the stratified notions of Bulgaria as a satellite of Moscow, which have been advocated since socialism and the beginning of the transition. However, Bulgaria could be interesting precisely because there is a reality beyond the clichés that can be revealed when one comes here with a genuine curiosity and affection for Bulgarians, with a desire to learn something about and from them.
It is ironic that when in Romania sovereignism has the support of 25-28% of the population and when almost 50% of Romanians are nostalgic for Romanian socialism, we keep hearing how the main and only thing to know about Bulgarians is that they are poor and connected to Russia. I remember even now the surprise of a Romanian teacher during the teachers’ strike in Romania when he learned from me that the salary of the junior teachers in the Bulgarian education system was much higher than his. And yesterday, while talking to a Romanian friend, I received praise for the Bulgarian government having the character and self-confidence to say ‘no’ to the humiliating conditions imposed by Austria for Bulgaria’s Schengen accession. Bulgaria is capable of surprises, especially when perceptions of it are clichéd.
The same is true of Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, whom many in Romania describe as pro-Russian because the Romanian press says so (based, of course, on the respective labels in the Bulgarian press). How is it that a pro-Russian president was the main supporter in Bulgarian politics of the Three Seas Initiative and its summit in Sofia in 2021, an initiative, which was dominated by Poland and which many consider anti-Russian? Why did the “pro-Russian” Radev launch “pro-Western” Prime Minister Kiril Petkov into Bulgarian politics and why did Petkov then get his anti-Russian voters to vote for Radev, which they did with the utmost obedience?
As long as we strive to understand Bulgarian politics and society through simplistic labels, we will not get far. Bulgarian politicians are chameleons. And the Bulgarian media conveniently creates the colourful backdrop against which some of them pass as Westerners, others as Easterners, and when they have to, they switch roles (Borisov and Peevski are obvious examples in the year 2023).
There is a need for the Romanian press to seek a better understanding of the Bulgarians and I would like to support this approach. But I think it will always fail as long as the only discovery about us Bulgarians is that we are tied to Russia, i.e. we are poor, stupid and don’t deserve respect. Even when Bulgarians themselves complain about the Russophile aspect of us, I would still look for a more complex explanation of our social game. Because on the one hand we have internal contradictions between institutions or groups, and on the other hand there are Russophile lobbies in the West, so being “Russophile” can also be something “Western”. For those who don’t know, Lukoil is precisely a good example of American-Russian collaboration. And isn’t there a Lukoil headquarters in Romania as well?…
We Bulgarians are in NATO and the EU just like Romania. But unlike the Romanians, we had two candidates for UN Secretary General who were supported by both the West and the East, the only difference between them was whether they were supported by France or rather Britain. To me that’s precisely the interesting thing about the Bulgarians – their bridge aspect. To be a bridge takes imagination and courage. I wish we all had more of these.
Photo: Fragment from the Soviet Army Monument in Sofia, currently being dismantled (source: Pixabay, CC0)
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