The Uses and Misuses of History in Bulgarian Political Life 1878-2005

By IVAN ILCHEV
Dean. Faculty of History
University of Sofia “St.Kliment Ohridski”

Lecture given in the MUNK CENTRE
University of Toronto
March 29 2005
5:00-6:30 P.M.

History as Politics

(PROFESSOR ILCHEV WITH MEMBERS OF THE BULGARIAN COMMUNITY IN TORONTO)

Sometimes I feel ashamed to be a historian, or rather, those around me  tend to make me feel ashamed. Several years ago, at the height of the Yugoslav crisis, I took part in an international conference on the happenings in the Balkans. The participants did not have the slightest idea and could not guess the reasons for a peninsula going berserk for the mass murders in Europe - well the outskirts of Europe, but still Europe, in the end of the 20th century.
Finally an American participant - a colonel in the army - and you know that in general the military prefer the simple straightforward solutions - suggested that history should be banished, that it should not be taught in the Balkans for at least 20 years from now on. He was inclined to be generous - after that a discussion might be started to judge whether the Peninsula needed any history at all. So who were to blame for the pointless murders - the historians of course! It is no wonder that a suggestion like this one sprang out. From immemorial times on, history passes  as a dutiful slave of politics. Prof. Ivan Shishmanov, a prominent Bulgarian,literary historian and politician of the early 20th c, once stated that historyfollows the dictates of politics in the same way as a generously prepaid lawyerdoes. It never allows its clients to forget their woes, never lets their mutual complaints pass into oblivion but rather tends to poke with a big poker the ember fires of threats and insults, real or perceived, that had to be forgiven and forgotten, But is it right to blame the hammer which hits the anvil when it hammers out a sword instead of a plough? History was politics even as early as the Middle Ages. The first Kans or Princes of the Bulgarian state sought its help. It had to legitimize them and their rule in the eyes of their subjects. The so called Imennik na bulgarskite hanove — A List of Bulgarian rulers - the first ever historical document written in Bulgaria probably in the mid eighth c. AD - had to prove the age long political tradition of the country and its rulers. History was politics during the National Revival of Bulgaria in the 18th-19th c. The very National revival according to the traditionalist scheme started with a historical book - the fiery and persuasive, though poorly researched  History of the Slav Bulgarians written by the monk Paissii of the Hilandar monastery on Athos mountain.
And this is only natural. The Bulgarians treaded on a path, well trodden by romantic nationalism elsewhere in Europe. The dusty mists of the past were supposed to give plausible explanations of the present and precepts for the future. Georgi Rakovski, one of the precursors of the liberation-movement, was mobilizing his few followers with numerous examples from the past of the Bulgarians - often cooked up by him. His basic idea was the greatness of the Bulgarians who had been in the foundations of the greatest achievements of humanity. A humble teacher in Pazardzik published a moving document on the afceEil Islamization of the Bulgarians in the Rhodope mountains in the 17th century. The laconic sentences, filled with grief that pierced the soul, divided the guilt for the atrocious acts  between the perpetrators - the Turks, of course, and the instigators - the Greeks. Moving, but false, as shown convincingly by modern researchers. A deliberate attempt to use history or rather a made up version of history as a political weapon.
History was the rallying cry of the young men who prepared the April uprising against the Turkish rule 1876 and set the chain of events that led utlimately to the establishment of a Bulgarian state in 1878. In fiery speeches they brought back to life the spirits of Kan Krum the Terrible or Sineon the Great. None of them saw any sign of barbarity, only a proof of patriotism, in the fact that Krum made a goblet out of the skull of the defeated Byzantine emperor Nicephorus and drank the health of his friends with it. All of them loudly cursed the Byzantines for their barbarity in blinding the captured soldiers of king Samuil. The Bulgarian emigrants in Romania on the eve of the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878 used historical arguments to set forth demands for a state that in extent would emulate the mediaeval Bulgarian state.The principality of Bulgaria created in 1878 with the decisions of the Congress of Berlin had two very important and intertwined tasks to solve.The first was to modernize the poor backward country as quickly as possible.The second - to reach for the stars and to redeem the dream of a San Stefano Greater Bulgaria shattered in the Gen-nan capital. In the three decades that followed to the beginning of the Balkan wars, the state did not spare any effort to mould the population of the country into a monolith turning all its citizens into a well sharpened dagger of its national ambition. A policy that was supposed to ensure the country  a domineering position in the Peninsula. The process of breaking the traditional patriarchal pattern of the society was a painful one. The Bulgarians, used to living in small closely knit communities, were wary of becoming citizens of a society, modern in terms of political philosophy and political realization. History had to smooth down the process. The transformation of the peasant into a citizen, the transformation of local consciousness into a national one was a difficult process even in developed Western Europe, but the Bulgarian politicians had the opportunity of being able to use the already amassed experience in this aspect. The main pillars supporting this transformation would have been as in all other modern societies — education, army, religion and economics. In education - history was paramount.
In the army - history played an important part in turning the uneducated conscripts from a motley crowd into a disciplined force full of what the French called elan. In religion - history also had a function. A new hagiography was being developed focused on those clerics who had taken an active part in the struggle for an independent church. Textbooks,especially textbooks in history, created the modern notions of the past, present, and future of Bulgaria and its place in Europe. In 1878 probably no more than 5% of the Bulgarian males were literate. On the eve of the Balkan wars - three decades later - the Bulgarian society was the most highly educated society in the Balkans. Virtually all the Bulgarians who were to fight the Turks and then the Serbians, the Greeks and the Romanians in the Balkan wars and WWI, were products of the modern school system. They had their mindset and their ideas molded in the direction set by the state. The textbooks followed the explicit directions of the Ministry of education. It set forth the topics that would be indispensable. It spelled clearly the basic conclusions that had to be hammered into the minds of the students. It appointed the committees of experts that were supposed to evaluate them. In the long run it prescribed which of the textbooks were to be used in schools.In a word the textbooks to a large extent were mouth pieces of the state philosophy. The textbooks dealt mostly with the peaks of the Bulgarian past - be they heroic or tragic. The history of the Middle ages was to a large extent a history of almost perpetual glory - Krum the Terrible, Prince Boris the Baptiser, Simeon the Great, Kaloyan, John Assen II, Bulgaria reaching the shores of three seas;history of magnificent victories - Bulgarofoigon, Adrianople,Klokothitza. The tragic moments like the blinding of the warriors of Samuil or the treacherous attack of the Serbians in the Battle ofVelbuzd in 1330 when the whole Bulgarian army was scattered and the king himself perished, were not omitted but emphasis was on the bravery of Bulgarians who had to battle at impossible odds with double-crossing adversaries. When the centuries of Turkish domination were depicted, the black and red dominated the palette of the authors. Black for oppression; red for blood. Rivers of blood flooded the pages of textbooks. "Turkish yoke" became an useful propaganda and educational cliche that allowed governments to blame the Turkish rule for all the negative traits of the society. According to specialists in political sciences one of the duties of a modern state is to uphold the cohesion of the society. An easy way to do it is to mobilize it against a real or imaginary enemy. Sometimes, however, this is too difficult. The modern state exists in a complex system of changing interest patterns. To pinpoint the enemy is not always possible. This is where history enters the picture. Eternal enemies - that's her job. First and foremost, the arch enemies were the Turks who, according to the textbooks, were “a fanatical mob of followers of Muhammad”. The same who in the April uprising were "plundering everything around" and "abused the honor of women and children alike". Enemies were the Moslems in general. Bulgarian speaking Moslems included. Those who in Batak "massacred the Christian Bulgarians... gouging their eyes out, chopping their arms and other parts of their bodies off... slashing the bellies of pregnant women and cutting the throats of children in front of their parents".
Enemies were the Greeks. Pathetic phrases were used to portray the tragic fate of the warriors of king Samuil, the camp fires of the Byzantine army, the knives that henchmen used to blind their captives, the heart rending procession of maimed Bulgarian warriors. "The Greeks -" exclaimed one of the authors - they are the evil genius, the malicious spirit of the Bulgarians" Enemies - especially after the Serbian Bulgarian war of 1885 were the Serbians. Those who have made an unprovoked attack on their Christian Slav brothers and who were encroaching on the sacred Bulgarian patrimony in Macedonia.
The state was setting a great importance on history in preparing the masses for the years of wars 1912-1918 and it did not fail the expectations. Historians were writing brochures, pamphlets and tracts both to influence their compatriots and to prepare the grounds for the future Peace conference. The state, however, did not manage to monopolize history for long. The morsel was too juicy. Political parties started a struggle over history which continues up to the present day. The socialists were particularly active. The giants of the national liberation movement - a particularly attractive prey. Historical arguments continued to be in the vogue in the years after World War I. The national catastrophe was looking for someone to blame. The nation was striving to understand who  had squandered away_its efforts- what happened to the economic progress- why tens of thousands of Bulgarians were sacrificed in vain- why hundreds of thousands of refugees were looking for a place to start their life anew. Historians who shared the values of the Agrarian party of Stambuliiski were looking for hope and optimism in the inherent positive qualities of the peasants. Communist historians used historical arguments to urge the violent
coming of communism and the overthrow of the rotten bourgeoisie. Both were attacking Ferdinand of Coburg Gotha in unison. His guilt was personified. Even the best historians did not dare to swim against the current and recall that up to 1911 Ferdinand was closely connected with the modernization of the country. Historical objectivity fell a victim to political considerations.
The interwar years made even broader the gap between the different venues of history treatment. The procommunist historians deftly created a fictitious chain of events with serious political repercussions - the Bulgarians were Slavs - so were the Russians -it became logical that the Bulgarians should be Russophiles . Ergo- they should support the Soviet union and its policy. Their adversaries preferred the Proto Bulgarians and accented the civilizing role of Austria and Germany. But all this was just a rehearsal, and what is more, an inept rehearsal of what was to happen in the years after WW II. In less than five years after 1944 the communist party, now in power, managed to put under its indisputable rigid control the whole historical science. The overwhelming idea was to emulate the great Soviet Union. The University and the new research institutions created in the early 50s were crammed with young people, who followed blindly all the directives of their superiors from the Party.
Those who did not believe in the new Gospel had no way out. They were harassed, forced to criticize their "former" ideas, fired or prematurely retired. Even those who managed willy-nilly to keep their positions were stigmatized and had to be silent.  Informers were bringing forth to the authorities every imprudent thought or word.
Even if they wanted to speak out to suggest an alternative, how could they do it?  There were no professional journals remaining outside of the party reach and control. No independent newspapers. No independentpublishing. An intellectual desert. The faithful communist historians who were now in command organized two national meetings. The idea was to let historians know what they had to write and how they had to write it. It was a clear cut order that nothing should go against the policy of the party. It didn't matter that this policy was changing - the historians had to follow it blindly. This gave birth to the bitter joke - What is the straightest line possible ?— the line parallel to the party line. In the beginning of the 1950s the time was considered ripe for the creation of the first ever history of Bulgaria written not by a single man voicing his personal opinion of the past but a history giving the official line. Vulko Chervenkov, the secretary General of the party, considered by official propaganda, and probably by himself also, an unsurpassed expert on everything possible  (from the only correct way to plough the fields, to the only correct way to paint pictures, to the only correct way to write history ) showed considerable interest in the new so called academic history of Bulgaria - KOSEV. The basic idea  to be promoted was the age long friendship with Russia and the Soviet Union. According to the new history and the resulting new history textbooks Bulgarians had always been connected with Russia. All their woes came when their rulers neglected this dictum. Some uncomfortable questions had to be avoided or circumvented. The communists did not like kings and Russia was a monarchy up to 1917. The explanation was easy. The kings had to stoop before the will of the people who always rose in defense of their Bulgarian brothers and gave their sovereigns no option rather than follow a progressive policy in the Balkans. The ideas were driven to the absurd. It was hinted that the Russian prince Sviatoslav who virtually destroyed Bulgaria in the end of the 10th century had come to help Bulgarians  get rid of their oppressors – the Bulgarian kings. "Shoulder to shoulder - wing to wing" — A huge propaganda tableau depicted  the stages of the Bulgarian Russian friendship - starting with the year when the hordes of Sviatoslav plundered the capital of Bulgaria Preslav.The state continued the established tradition. It pinpointed the new enemies - the Anglo-american imperialists who conspired to change the established socialist order.
The easiest way to preach the new gospel were textbooks. The system in general remained the same but was even more centralized. There were no more open competitions among historians for writing textbooks. The authors were chosen by the party and wrote their texts according to the orders of the party.
The driving force of history became class struggle. Ivailo - the so called peasant king of the late 13th c. and the bogomils - religious heretics who preached dualism and did not recognize the state as such - became the focal points of the treatment of the Middle ages. The national revolutionaries in this new version of history were fighting the Turks not so much because of the religious or everyday oppression, but driven by the motives of the class struggle. The April uprising was a deed of the poorest peasants while the wealthier Bulgarians betrayed them and sided with the Turks. This convoluted and willfully distorted picture of the past had little to do with objectivity but was politically correct. The history of Bulgaria in the late 19 -20 centuries was most prone to these distortions and falsifications. According to a version established in the late 1940s and the early 1950s, the communists were the only ones to oppose the pro Nazis policy during World War II .None of those who did not agree with the political course of king Boris III were even mentioned. What is more, they were grouped together as a bunch of fascist helpers and willing servants of the treacherous monarch. The period after World War II when communists took power, notwithstanding the hostility of the opposition lavishly paid by its masters - the Anglo-American imperialists ,  was a period of unlimited successes and continuing progress.
The changes in agriculture came with the enthusiastic support of the peasants. Up to the beginning of the 1980s not a word was mentioned of the
conflict in the villages. Even after that it was explained with the habitual conservatism of the peasantry and the foul play of foreign powers. The industrialization blindly following the Soviet model was praised as the only way of modernizing the country. Not a word of mistakes, of outdated equipment, of money wasted and misspent. Society was united around the policy of the Bulgarian communist party and steadfastly defended it. The Bulgarians were expected to be gullible. But in order to be gullible they had to be fed with at least some facts that looked plausible. The historians had to dig them out. When there was nothing to dig up, they had to be engineered. The history of the communist party became the equivalent of the best and most important part of modern Bulgarian history. 70% of the articles on modern history published in the most influential professional journal Istoricheskt pregled were devoted to the history of the communist party. Let us not forget that there were a number of journals which published nothing but articles on the history of the communist party. A special institute on the history of the communist party was created.
A special higher party institute took care of those party members whose general education left much to be wished for and who were not material for the universities. An Academy of social sciences was supposed to elaborate the general objectives in the treatment of history. In all universities and institutions of higher education special departments on the history of the Bulgarian communist parties were created. All students had to pass an exam on its history - a nightmare for engineers or doctors or economists. Up to the end of the 1960s 80% of all Phd dissertations in modern history were devoted to the history of the communist party. Theistorians themselves had no other option but following the party line.
Up to 1956 Joseph Stalin was the greatest leader of the communist world fraternity. After 1956 he became a monster, an abomination. When Leonid Breznev took power and changed the line, Stalin again became a great leader with few minor mistakes that could not dent the correctness of his political course. Historians dutifully followed the changes. Generations of young Bulgarians did not know virtually anything of the part played by states other than the Soviet Union in WW II. The invasion in Normandy, the Second front, the war in the Pacific, were minor skirmishes in the treatment of the authors of textbooks and newspapers. USA ?? The way the history of the liberation struggles in Macedonia was treated is thought provoking. After WW II up to the mid 1950s this was a struggle of the Macedonians who opposed the aggression of Serbian, Greek and Bulgarian bourgeoisie. The period from the beginning of the 20th century up to the Balkan wars passed under the title "The Bulgarian bourgeoisie in preparation for aggressive and imperialist wars". Dinio Kiosev - why did not the hand that wrote this shrivel away? When the party line changed, Kiosev published a collection of documents of Gotse Delchev. In the foreword he claimed and proved that the leader of the
Macedonian national liberation movement has never been anything other than an ardent Bulgarian patriot. Luckily the situation in the mid 1960s changed somewhat. The short ottepel ~ of Hrushchov's years - helped. A new generation of historians emerged. Though steeped in the party dogmas, they began to nurture doubts of their own.
Their efforts started to broaden the walls of the carefully built cell – at least to a certain extent. The role of proto Bulgarians versus Slavs began to be discussed once again. Research clearly showed the primary role of the national bourgeoisie in the national liberation movement against the Turks. The Macedonian struggles began to be treated as a complex event, starting as purely Bulgarian, but having to change because of the insurmountable odds. The idea, subjected to a severe criticism by party bosses, that alongside the communists a number of bourgeois politicians were actively opposing the pro Nazis course ofWW II years was gradually gaining ground. This was not a revolution in itself. Most of the historians continued to follow the orthodox communist politics. Still it helped to change the general climate in the country.
The role of history as an instrument of politics was boosted in the short years when Liudmila Zhivkova, the daughter of the General secretary of the communist party Todor Zhivkov and heir apparent was in power. With her encouragement for 5 or 6 years the Bulgarian historians were playing a prominent role in society, announcing and preparing the grandiose celebration of the 1300 anniversary of the foundation of Bulgaria. The idea which aimed at asserting the Bulgarian cultural and historical traditions received a lukewarm reception in Moscow. The Russians considered it a stab at their supremacy in all possible fields. The historians  gained self reliance. After the untimely death of Luidmila Zhivkova, notwithstanding the efforts of party zealots, the jinn once released from the bottle did not want to go back.
Historical science, however, continued with its ups and downs. At least some historians willingly took part in the so called "renaming" process of the Bulgarian Moslems in the mid 1980s. They were striving to persuade the society as a whole that all Turks living in the country were descendants of the forcefully converted Bulgarian Christians and thus revived the ghosts of the past. Luckily a sizeable number of historians managed to remain outside this chauvinistic clatter. A man is tempted to assume that the momentous changes in 1989 would change momentously the situation of the historians. Unfortunately this did not happen. Those who were used to following blindly the prescriptions of the powers to be, continued to follow them blindly, aspiring for better positions or material rewards for political influence under the new circumstances.
Some of those historians who had  turned their participation in the writing of collective histories of district, city or village party organizations into a profitable and well rewarding business, and who were proud of their positions as full or associate professors in the history of the communist party, changed almost immediately into specialists in cultural or political studies. TRENDAFIL Some of those who prided themselves on being the authorities on the history of the so called United front - Otechestven front - and lauded the wise policy of the Communist party during the war while branding as fascist all bourgeois democrats, almost immediately became authorities on the so called People's courts after communists' takeover and on the crimes perpetuated by the communists.
Some of those who were the troubadours of the policy of Todod Zvivkov almost immediately pretended that they had always been staunch anticommunists. The coming to power of the new government of Simeon Sax Coburg Gotha led to new pirouettes. Those who previously had exhausted the dictionary in finding swear words for king Boris III - sly, cruel, double minded, lying, deceiving, perfidious, maniac, etc, now were writing official biographies of the late King. Their presentation is made with great pomp and is even adorned with the presence of his illustrious son, now Prime minister of Bulgaria.
On the other side, a number of historians were subjected to economic pressure. The lack of state financing led them to look for and rely upon west European projects. The result was the flood of research on minorities in Bulgaria. By the way they were needed so this was not bad. Some of the school textbooks in history that appeared after 1989 caused public uproar. Their authors were branded with the seven deadly sins. The uppermost of those was that they wanted to exchange the habitual term -turkish yoke with Turkish presence. An unsubstantiated accusation which however holds ground even today. The first new history textbooks after 1989 followed the tradition of the late 1940s. They were commissioned to chosen authors in violation of the law that required open public competition. The choice of authors was also influenced to a large extent by the recent events in the country and by political considerations. The new textbooks ,/quite inadequate by the way,/ were supposed to challenge established patterns and they did challenge them. The authors gave new explanations, unsupported by any research, to a number of events of recent history. This gave birth to an outcry among professional historians, history teachers as well as the public in general.
The textbooks have now changed. They represent at least to a certain extent the new findings of Bulgarian scholars. But it is a well known fact that there is a gap between research, publishing the results in articles and monographs and their translation in textbooks. Probably years will pass before textbooks start to reflect in a much higher degree the best results of historical research. One sometimes wonders whether the changes now are a result of the natural development of Bulgarian society and Bulgarian historiography or a result of the pressure of the West and the exigencies of politics. At best a blend of both. But we could say that our children now have textbooks that are comparatively free of current politics, though absolute objectivity is impossible to achieve.
At least the situation does not seem much different in many European countries and "homo balkanicus" is used to lagging behind. Historical arguments, however, still continue to be used by politicians. Several years ago the then Prime minister Philip Dimitrov was told by some historians that on the eve of WW II Bulgaria was the fourth country in Europe in living standards and this myth continues to be perpetuated because of its political usefulness.
Bulgarian participants in the war against Nazi Germany are treated as outcasts - according to politicians the war was launched by the communists. Ergo all participants were communists and do not deserve pensions. While those who struggled against the communists and spent the best years of their lives in prisons and camps now are fully recognized, Bulgaria is probably the only European country that shuns those who fought the pro Nazi orientation of the country during the war. In a week or two I expect a renewing of the political battle with historical arguments - it is the anniversary of the communist terrorist act in the church Sveta Nedelia in Sofia in 1925, probably one of the most murderous acts of that type in Europe up to our days. Political scandal is going on at the moment on the participation of the president Purvanov himself in a conference organized by nationalist historians -  most of them fiery anti communist.
IN A WORD is it right to blame the hammer which hits the anvil when it hammers out a sword instead of a plough.
Edited by Bella de Moncton 2/4/2005/