PASTORAL REBUFF. PATRIARCH KIRILL'S VISIT TO BULGARIA AGGRAVATES RELATIONS BETWEEN MOSCOW AND SOFIA
by Alexander Chursin
For the 140th anniversary of the liberation of Bulgaria from the Ottoman yoke, local Russophiles dreamed of inviting President Putin. The dreams did not come true. Patriarch Kirill came. In the course of Russia's supreme cleric's visit and participation in festive events, a scandal erupted which has not yet subsided.
The occasion was the patriarch's response at a meeting with Bulgaria's president. In reply to Rumen Radev's words of gratitude addressed not only to Russians but also the Romanians, Finns, Lithuanians, Poles, Ukrainians and other nations that also participated in the war of liberation, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church (RPTs) expressed his "disappointment that he heard an incorrect historical interpretation of events" of that time.
In Kirill's opinion, there cannot be "political and pragmatic reasons" to hush up or falsely interpret Russia's role. And he added: "We are for historical truth, Mister President. We won this historical truth with our blood."
In his turn, President Radev noted that he respects "every drop of blood poured out on Bulgarian soil," and he emphasized: "In no measure do we underestimate the contribution of the Russian army in the liberation of Bulgaria, but the Russian army was multi-ethnic and we honor the memory of each nation."
It would seem that the sides had their say and took into account the contradictory points of view, and the topic was closed. However, the hortatory tone of Patriarch Kirill in the spirit of an "elder brother" evoked in Bulgarian society a stormy discussion about how one should in the present time regard Russia's attitude toward Bulgaria.
One should note that the ground for it was well prepared in recent years by a number of ambiguous statements by Russian officials. Thus, President Putin said, when meeting with his colleague from Macedonia, that the literature of Ancient Rus came from the Macedonian land, completely obliterating the Bulgarian kingdom from history, where at the time of the creation of the Slavonic alphabet the brothers Cyril and Methodius resided.
The newly installed vice-speaker of the State Duma, Peter Tolstoy, offended Bulgarians by declaring that Russia bought Bulgaria long ago inasmuch as, they say, Russians already own a substantial portion of Bulgarian real estate. Which actually is far from the truth.
A representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakhaarova, affirmed in general that in 1943 Bulgarian Jews were saved from the Holocaust not by the heroic efforts of the local intelligentsia and clergy but by the soviet army, which at the time was located more than a thousand kilometers from Bulgaria.
The reaction in Bulgarian society to such statements always has been painful and unambiguous: the Kremlin, by continually recalling its role as the "great liberator," interferes in the internal life of the country without proper respect for the national self-consciousness of the Bulgarian people. And this time, according to local observers, the exalted Moscow guest "besmirched the national holiday in the jubilee year and cast a shadow on the memory of the troops (including Christians) who died heroically for Bulgarian freedom and opened a new wound in Russian-Bulgarian relations."
A former president of Bulgaria, Rosen Plevneliev, made a special declaration in which, in particular, he wrote: "I do not agree with Patriarch Kirll, who behaved like a schoolmaster at an official dinner in the Holy Synod and imposed the 'correct interpretation of history' which turned out to be nothing other than another manipulation of history on the part of Russia. In several of my speeches I have warned about the ideology of aggressive pan-Slavic orthodox nationalism that is imposed by President Putin. The Russian Orthodox Church today is completely subordinate to the state and is an inseparable part of the ambitions of President Putin for dividing spheres of influence."
Personal attacks on the Russian patriarch were not dispensed with. Vice-Premier Valery Simeonov, a co-chair of the United Patriots coalition, in an interview with Bulgarian television, called Kirill the "cigarette metropolitan" and a "second-rate agent of the soviet K.G.B," who has "a personal airplane and wears a 30,000 euros watch."
Simeonov's colleague in the UP and a leader, known for his pro-Moscow attitudes, of the nationalistic Ataka party, Volen Siderov, spoke out in defense of the head of the RPTs and demanded that the vice-premier publicly apologize to Kirill and resign. Simeonov categorically refused to apologize. The coalition seemed on the brink of schism, which could turn into a government crisis.
This anti-Bulgarian bacchanalia did not escape the attention of the Bulgarian press, which was aired on the First Channel of Russian television in a broadcast by Vladimir Soloviev on 6 March by so-called analysts and experts on international policy. They accused the whole Bulgarian nation of ingratitude and claimed that the authorities of the country are "traitors and scoundrels."
President Radev, on whom Moscow placed great hopes, personally sold out to the West. They said that henceforth we should help Bulgarians replace their rulers.
Apologists of the "besieged fortress" and the thesis of "enemy encirclement" in a propaganda frenzy do not even want to notice how whole nations are being repulsed. After all, Bulgarians, despite the fact that they have for long not wished to be reconciled to the role of eternally esteemed "younger brother," still treat Russian very warmly and love our culture, literature, and music. They carefully maintain monuments and graves of Russian soldiers and officers who fell in the Russo-Turkish War. In practically every Bulgarian city there are streets named in honor of Russian generals and diplomats, and nobody is intending to rename them. For now. (tr. by PDS, posted 11 March 2018)
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