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Bulgaria: Patriotic Outrage Dominates EU Parliament Campaign

18 05 2007  By Albena Shkodrova in Batak

The banner behind Siderov’s back calls for violence against two history scientists from the Free University of Berlin.

"Baleva - to the guillotine, impale the Judean German!" Thus read a banner worn by Volen Siderov of the Bulgarian far right party, Ataka, as he closed his campaign for election to the European Parliament.

The violent slogan referred to two researchers – Martina Baleva and Ulf Brunnbauer of the Institute for East Europe at the Free University of Berlin – whose scientific attempt at a new read of a minor historical event three weeks ago provoked the biggest nationalistic scandal in Bulgaria since the end of the Soviet regime.

EU parliament hopeful, Siderov, has sought to exploit the political, media and public anger that has ensued, and win a seat on Sunday, when the first such elections since Bulgaria joined the bloc last January will take place. Calling the historians “moral monsters”, he last night won the roaring approval of more than 1000 of his supporters.

In Batak, the remote town Siderov chose for his last public gathering, twelve per cent of the local population voted for Ataka in the last general election held in 2005. This is three per cent more than the national average, which was 8.93 per cent and ensured his party 21 deputies in the current national assembly of 240 members.

If it was not for the Bulgarians, Europe would have looked this way! Let’s stop the Feses* now! [*Fes is peyorative word for Turk, coming from the name of their traditional hats, feses] – is written on the Ataka’s posters for EU parliament campaign.

The portraits of key figures in Bulgaria's liberation movement, who fought for independence from the Ottoman Empire in the late nineteenth century, made a suitable background.

Songs from that epoch, filled with anti-Turkish sentiment, galvanised the crowd, which was waving black standards and national flags, anti-Turkish signs and posters calling for Bulgarians to "regain" their country from the ethnic Turkish minority.

"There is only one party in this country whose goal is to stop the building of minarets in Bulgaria, the speaking of Turkish language in public buildings and the oppression of Bulgarians", Siderov said in his address to the crowd.

His 30 minute-long speech had little to do with the EU.

Siderov hopes to gain votes as a result of a surge of Bulgarian nationalism sparked by the recent media and political scandal over a historical study about the history of Batak.

During the Bulgarian uprising against Ottoman rule in April 1876, more than 6000 people were killed in Batak, some 130 kilometers southeast of Sofia.

The massacre remains a symbol of Bulgarians’ suffering under Turkish rule.

Last month Baleva and Brunnbauer announced they had completed research on the collective memory of Batak.

The two historians asserted that many Bulgarian intellectuals, whose descriptions of the events have been treated as primary sources, were in fact inspired by the biased and romantic account of the events by US journalist Januarius MacGahan and Polish painter Antony Pyotrovsky.

The Baleva and Brunnbauer report was interpreted by many Bulgarian media outlets as a “denial of the Batak massacre” and dismissed as a “criminal mockery” of the “national sanctuary, Batak”.

While the two historians said they never thought to deny that atrocities had taken place in Batak, the majority of Bulgarian media maintained that the two were doing just that. One newspaper, the national daily Monitor, even suggested that Turkey had financed the research.

Bulgaria’s president, Georgi Purvanov, also a historian, said he would deliver a public lecture on Batak to “put an end to attempts aimed at distorting Bulgarian history”.

The events triggered an unprecedented nationalistic outpouring, which can be overheard in every coffee shop in the country.

“You simply can’t say that black is white!”, an elderly man exclaimed, as he exited a small chapel next to the old Batak church. “This is blasphemy!”

The church of Batak, where many people died in 1876, has suddenly become one of the most visited tourist spots in the country, the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency reported last week.

In the space of twenty minutes on the afternoon of May 17, a normal working day, eight families entered this usually deserted place to have a glimpse of the well, dug with bare hands by desperate mothers during the April Uprising events.

The Batak dispute has also influenced the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms, DPS, which has been at pains to underline its pro-Bulgarian position.

The party took an active part in a campaigning last week for use of the Cyrillic alphabet and announced that Bulgarian Turks helped Bulgaria’s song to reach the final of the Eurosong contest in Finland.
The DPS has also backed efforts aimed at resolving the fate of the Bulgarian nurses, sentenced to death in Libya in a high profile AIDS case.

But the idea that someone from abroad tries to deprive them of their national pride is hateful to most Bulgarians. “They paid them a million or two [to do this]!”, shouted Vanyo, an elderly man from Batak.

He was repeating what the national history museum’s director, Bozhidar Dimitrov, and other Bulgarian historians have said publicly, in comments on Baleva’s and Brunnbauer’s research.

“I would also say such a thing, if someone gave me a million”, Vanyo added, half jokingly. “The trouble is there is no one to give you a million!”, laughed his neighbours, sitting on the bench in front of their house and counting the busloads of Ataka supporters arriving from across the country.

But it is not only Siderov who has been trying to exploit the case. President Purvanov, who remains closely connected to his Bulgarian Socialist Party, was also here a day earlier, on May 16. He arrived to mark the anniversary of the April Uprising and participate in a discussion on Batak’s history.

“It was nice, there were fireworks!” a Batak woman commented. “We’ll go again tonight!”

She says she still hasn’t decided who she will vote for on Sunday. But many people of her age have: last night Siderov managed to bring out a contingent of elderly people who visibly outnumbered the locals.

“Dogan [the Turkish party’s leader] should go!”, they shouted enthusiastically for several hours. Although it remained unclear what this had to do with the EU parliament.