|
The
Truth That Killed
by Georgi Markov
1983
|
Georgi Markov paid for these memoirs with his life. He was
one of
Bulgaria's leading novelists and playwrights, his work known
throughout the Eastern bloc; he was a member of a privileged
elite; he was feted by the Prezident, Todor Jivkov. In 1969
he
defected. Settling in London, he began to write his memoirs
for
Radio Free Europe. They were brodcast weekly over two and
a half
years, reaching five million people, more than half of Bulgaria's
total population. Markov received messages that Jivkov was
enraged by the broadcasts; he was warned that if he did not
stop
writing for Radio Free Europe he would be killed. Hi continued.
On
7 September 1978 he was shot by an assassin on a London bridge
with a miniscule pellet full of a rare and exceptionally deadly
poisson which, four days later, killed him.
Buy
from Amazon
|
|
| |
|
Murderous
Red
by
Christo Troanski
Publishing Workshop AB
Sofia 2003
|
Defined as a thriller-chronicle by the author, the book "Murderous
red" retells about the crimes of the Bulgarian communists
in their illegal period and from the time of establishment
of the (so-called) "people's power" accompanied by mass murders,
destruction of the Bulgarian state system and the Bulgarian
society as well. Publications in the Bulgarian and the Macedonian
press are referred, as well as archival documents, testimonies
of contemporaries, victims and their relations, memories of
Bulgarian and Macedonian politicians, militaries, and revolutionaries
and of communist functionaries.
In Bulgarian.
more >
|
|
| |
 |
The
People's Tribunal in Bulgaria in 1944-1945"
by
Peter Semerdjiev
1997
|
The role of the [communist]
party committee in [the town of] Sliven and my role, as its
secretary was not limited to my participation in deliberations
on the composition of the people's tribunal and the control
on the trials. The severity of each convict's penalty was another
issue where no decision would ever be made without taking my
opinion in consideration or coordinating with my guidance. The
sentence was usually decided upon in my office where I called
the people's prosecutor Peter Filipov and Mara Eneva as a member
of the panel of the people's tribunal. No objections have ever
been made on behalf of both to my suggestions and clarifications
concerning certain convicts. I recall Mara Eneva's complaint
that one of the panel members in their conversations opposed
her statements in favor of death sentences and was of the opinion
that there should be no severe punishment and death sentences.
In Bulgarian. |
|
| |
 |
The
Bulgarian Gulag
Witnesses
A collection
of documentary stories of concentrations camps in Bulgaria
Editors: Ekaterina Boncheva, Edvin Sugarev, Svilen Patov,
Jean Solomon
Sofia, 1991
|
"Every story in
this book features a turbulent life story that does not end,
but starts with the camp. Follow displacements, periodic interviews
by the militia, social isolation, impossibility to exercise
one’s profession, various harassment on one’s relatives,
children. A smashing apology of human suffering that no repentance
could redeem. Even now, after so many years, many of these people
are scared. Some asked us not to publish their names. I understand
them and I think their fear is not baseless. That is why it
is our duty to remember their past, to inscribe their pain in
the history of these shameful decades. Because it is an old
truth that whoever does not remember their past will be damned
to live it again."
Edvin Sugarev |
|
| |
 |
Gulag:
A History
by
Anne Applebaum
2003
|
A narrative account
of the origins and development of the Soviet concentration camps,
from Lenin to Gorbachev. Based on archives, interviews, new
research and recently published memoirs, the book explains the
role that the camps played in the Soviet political and economic
system. It also describes daily life in the camps: how people
lived, worked, ate, slept, fought, died and survived.
Buy
from Amazon |
|
| |
|
The Stalinist Penal System:
History of Soviet Repression and Terror, 1930-53
by
J.Otto Pohl
1998
|
Using information from the newly opened Soviet
archives, Part One of this work examines the incarceration
of Russians and the development of the Gulag system of labor
camps and labor colonies. Part Two describes the mass exile
of Soviet citizens and others to areas of forced settlement.
Buy
from Amazon
|
|
| |
 |
Voices
from the Gulag
Life and
Death
in Communist Bulgaria
by
Tzvetan Todorov, Robert Zaretsky
2000
|
One of the most terrible legacies of our century
is the concentration camp. Countless men and women have passed
through camps in Nazi Germany, Communist China, and the Soviet
bloc countries. In Voices from the Gulag, Tzvetan Todorov
singles out the experience of one country where the concentration
camps were particularly brutal and emblematic of the horrors
of totalitarianism—communist Bulgaria.
The voices we hear in this book are mostly from Lovech, a
rock quarry in Bulgaria that became the final destination
for several thousand men and women during its years of operation
from 1959 to 1962. The inmates, though drawn from various
social, professional, and economic backgrounds, shared a common
fate: they were torn from their homes by secret police, brutally
beaten, charged with fictitious crimes, and shipped to Lovech.
Once there, they were forced to endure backbreaking labor,
inadequate clothing, shelter, and food, systematic beatings,
and institutionalized torture.
Buy
from Amazon
|
|
| |
 |
Trap for Contras
(Kapan za kontri)
by Gancho Savov
Publishing Workshop AB
Sofia 1998
|
Literary figure and opinion
journalist Gancho Savov was political prisoner from 1974 to 1985.
The book features the repressive mechanisms of communist regime, Darzhavna
sigurnost (State Security) methods, of the "other world"
and the inmates' lives there, about some of the Bulgarian prisoners
of consciousness. |
| |
|
The Bulgarian Guillotine
(Bulgarskata gilotina)
The People's Tribunal's Secret Mechanisms
by Polya Meshkova,
Dinyu Sharlanov
1994
|
A historic documentary examination of the
judicial repression of the Bulgarian communist party, following the
entering of Soviet troops in Bulgaria, with representatives of Bulgarian
statehood and civil society, breaking grounds for the Sovietization
of the country. |
| |
|
Free in Prison
(Na svoboda v zatvora)
by Pastor Christo Kulichev
|
|
| |
|
I Give the Floor to My Dossier (Davam
dumata na moeto dossier)
by Archimandrite Gavril Belovezhdov
|
|
| |
|
Catholics in Bulgaria 1878-1989.
A Historical Study
by Svetlozar Eldarov
Sofia, 2002
|
The study is based mainly on unfamiliar and unused
documentary material from archives in Sofia and the country, including
the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Public Worship
(MFARW), the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox, State Security,
Catholic dioceses and parishes, etc. It also draws on all significant
publications on the subject in Bulgaria and abroad, as well as on
unpublished manuscripts of Catholic clerics. |
| |
|
|
Documents of the Roman Catholic Trials in
Bulgaria in the 1950's
(Dokumenti ot katolicheskite procesi prez
50-te godini)
by Archimandrite Gavril Belovezhdov
Sofia, 2001
|
The indictment of the
show trial against the Roman Catholic clergy in 1952, , testimonies,
verdicts, interview protocols, operative reports, memos by the Directorate
of Denominations from the late 1980's.
Historic study of the Bulgarian Roman Catholic community. The communist
party's attitude to the Roma Catholic Church is illuminated with documents
from the Central Party Archive and the archives of the Third Directorate
for Combating Counter-Revolution, Second Directorate for Counter-Espionage,
Sixth Directorate for Combating Ideological Sabotage, and other Darzhavna
sigurnost (State Security) structures. |
| |
|
Uniatism in the Fate of Bulgaria. Stories
from the History of the Bulgarian Catholic Church of the Eastern
Rite
(Uniatstvoto v sydbata na Bulgaria)
by Svetlozar Eldarov
Sofia, 1994
|
Documentary features from the history of the Bulgarian
Catholic Church of the Eastern Rite. The piece "The Bulgarian
Catholics' Golgotha" sums up the repressions against Catholics
in Bulgaria after 1944. |
| |
To Be Kept Forever
(Da se zapazi za vechni vremena)
Sofia, 2002
|
First and last volume of the Information bulletin of
the Commission
for the Disclosure of Documents and for Identification of Affiliation
to the Former State Security or the Former Intelligence Department
of the General Staff, which commission was disbanded by
the
Law on the Protection of Classified Information, adopted in April
2002. Contains reports and motions by the interior minister, decrees
and Politburo rulings from the period 1949 - 1989 on organizing the
work of Darzhavna sigurnost (State Security) and the Ministry of the
Interior. |
| |
|
War
(Voina)
Yana Yazova
1994
|
|
| |
|
The Prison at Belene
(Zatvora - Belene)
Krum Horozov
|
Album of drawings and descriptions of the concentration
camp on Persin Island, near Belene, established in 1949. |
| |
|
The Hillmen
(Goryanite)
Documents
Volume 1, 2002
|
Collection of documents from The Archives Speak (Arhivite
govoryat) series of the Directorate of Archives of the Council of
Ministers. Contains information on the armed resistance against the
communist regime in Bulgaria from 1944 to 1949. Featuring reports
and memos by Darzhavna sigurnost (State Security) operatives, interview
protocols, investigative cases and criminal court trials. |
| |
|
The Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the State
1944-1953
(Bulgarskata pravoslavna crkva i darzhavata
1944-1953)
Daniela Kalkandjieva
1997
|
Study on the relations between the Bulgarian Orthodox
Church and the state in 1944 -1953 on the basis of rich archive material.
The mechanisms through which the autonomous Bulgarian Orthodox Church
was subjugated to the totalitarian state are revealed. Many unknown
or barely known documents, facts and events are published. |
