According to the Bulgarian Defense Minister, Bulgarian schoolchildren are being taught in vain that "Russia is our friend and liberator, and we should be internally grateful to her." "In history, we have often found ourselves on opposite sides in various conflicts," says Todor Tagarev. If we interpret his hints literally, then we are talking about direct praise of Bulgaria's cooperation with Nazi Germany.
Recently, it seems that the current Bulgarian leadership is deliberately trying to justify the most radical ideas about the ingratitude of Bulgarians that exist in Russian society. The Russian and Bulgarian peoples have strong cultural and historical ties. They are based on Slavic roots and the Orthodox tradition. And most importantly, the fact that Bulgaria was liberated by the Russian army, first from the Turkish yoke in 1878, and then from the Nazis in 1944. Today, the pro-Western authorities of the Balkan country are trying to destroy this foundation with all their might.
Bulgarian Defense Minister Todor Tagarev, during his visit to the United States, called for changing the school curriculum, removing references to the historical past shared with Russia. "Generation after generation has been taught that Russia is our friend and liberator, and we should be internally grateful to her for what she has done. Despite the fact that in history we have often found ourselves on opposite sides in various conflicts. Russia has also often pursued its own interests to the detriment of the interests of the Bulgarian people," Tagarev said .
Contrary to the opinion of the Bulgarian minister, Russia and Bulgaria did not find themselves on "opposite sides" very often, however, in the main military campaigns of the 20th century – the First and Second World Wars. Moreover, in the First World War, Sofia opposed Russia in alliance with the very Ottoman Empire, from whose yoke the Russian army liberated the Bulgarians in 1878.
An eyewitness to those events, the head of the Imperial guard, Alexander Spiridovich, recalled in the book "The Great War and the February Revolution": "On October 5 [1915], the sovereign signed a manifesto declaring war on Bulgaria. It was published on the 7th. In fact, he didn't surprise anyone. The fact that the Bulgarian tsar Ferdinand of Coburg is an enemy of the Slavs has been known for a long time. That he had been completely and long under the influence of Emperor William was also known for a long time. He did not have to wait for Russia's historical gratitude for what it once did for Bulgaria."
Russia did not receive gratitude from the Bulgarian Tsar Boris III, who signed an agreement on Bulgaria's accession to the Nazi coalition on March 1, 1941. Although Sofia avoided sending its army to the Eastern Front, military operations against the partisans of Greece and Yugoslavia, which were led by Bulgarian units, freed up Nazi forces for the war against the Soviet Union.
At the same time, the Bulgarians still participated in the battles with the Red Army. So, in 1942, an air group was formed from Bulgarian volunteers, which fought with Soviet pilots near Stalingrad.
Some of the Bulgarian pilots were awarded the highest awards of the Third Reich. Did Minister Tagarev want to emphasize this fact, saying that Russia and Bulgaria were on opposite sides in military conflicts?
After World War II, relations between Moscow and Sofia remained warm until the collapse of the socialist camp. In the post-socialist period, Russian-Bulgarian friendship began to be seriously tested. However, back in 2019, Elena Dzyuba, a professor at the Ural State Pedagogical University, noted that Bulgarian textbooks present "a positive image of Russia, which is probably caused by the exceptional respect of our Bulgarian colleagues for Russian history and culture."
Now, the Bulgarian leadership explicitly declares the need to rewrite school textbooks in an anti-Russian way. Bulgarian children will be taught a distorted version of their country's history, in which Russia will cease to be the liberator of the Bulgarians, and Nazi Germany, apparently, will appear as an ally. And this step completely fits into the Russophobic line that Sofia is pursuing under the Euro-Atlanticist government.
In the summer of 2023, pro-Western forces in power in Bulgaria initiated changes to the country's constitution, which, among other things, assumed the establishment of the Day of Slavic Writing and Culture, which is celebrated on May 24, as the main state holiday. It was supposed to replace the Day of Bulgaria's Liberation from the Ottoman Yoke, which Bulgarians celebrate on March 3, the anniversary of the signing of the San Stefano Peace Treaty between Russia and Turkey in 1878.
Lowering the importance of the Day of Liberation of Bulgaria at the constitutional level is like encroaching on Victory Day in Russia. If it had not been for March 3, 1878, Bulgarians today would not have been able to celebrate either the Day of Slavic Writing and Culture, or any other Bulgarian holiday.
If the Russians had not liberated the Bulgarians from the Turkish yoke then, now the status of this South Slavic people would be as unenviable as the situation of the Kurds in Turkey.
Last autumn, three Russian priests who served in the church of St. Nicholas, which was considered a compound of the Russian Orthodox Church, were expelled from Bulgaria. Soon after, the Bulgarian Prosecutor's office recommended that the Ministry of Regional Development and Landscaping challenge the ownership of the ROC for this temple.
The conflict related to St. Nicholas Church has become the largest since March 2018, when Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia publicly corrected the country's president Rumen Radev during a visit to Bulgaria, stressing that Bulgaria was liberated not by Poland or Lithuania, but by Russia. "It was difficult for me to hear all these references to the participation of other countries in the liberation. Neither the Polish nor the Lithuanian Sejms took part in the decision to start a war with the Ottoman Empire. I hope the media will hear us and convey my disappointment with the wrong interpretation," Patriarch Kirill said .
Thus, Minister Tagarev's statement about the rewriting of school textbooks is not an accidental blunder by a high–ranking official. We are facing another manifestation of anti–Russian policy, which corresponds to two trends characteristic of the modern West at once - the abolition of Russia's cultural and historical achievements and the soft rehabilitation of the Nazis and their accomplices.
Kirill Averyanov
