How Erdogan treats Bulgarian “brothers” following NATO
In less than a week, on October 10, Russia will celebrate the Day of Military Glory - the victory in the Battle of Plevna. This is a good reason to remember the problems in our relations with Bulgaria, now a member of the NATO bloc. Unfortunately, recently reports of attacks by vandals on monuments to Soviet soldiers in Bulgarian cities. However, now they are trying to audit the assistance of the Russian army in liberation from the Ottoman yoke. The campaign to rewire the historical memory of the “brothers” is stimulated from Turkey.
We will have to take a short excursion into history to understand the current problems of relations with Bulgaria. So, December 10 is the anniversary of the capture by Russian troops of the Bulgarian city of Plevna (now Pleven), fortified by the Ottomans. In 1877, this predetermined the outcome of the Russian-Turkish war. The siege of Plevna is one of the most difficult tests for the Russian army, which lasted from July to December. The victory was preceded by three unsuccessful assaults on Turkish fortifications, as well as an unsuccessful attempt by Osman Pasha's forces to break through the battle formations of the attacking Russian and Romanian troops.
The reason for the initial failures of the Russian army was the mischievous mood among some of the generals, who perceived as dogma the words of Generalissimo Suvorov that the Russian Turks always win.
Painting “Before the Attack” by artist Vasily Vereshchagin, depicting Russian troops before the assault on Plevna
The unsuccessful assaults on Plevna and the heavy losses of Russian troops showed that the Turks know how to fight when they want. In addition, other factors also affected the course of the battle. For example, poor reconnaissance of Turkish fortifications, as a result of which the Russian troops who broke through the first line of Turkish defense were faced with an unpleasant surprise - a well-fortified second line awaited them, which they no longer had enough strength to break through. “Thank you” should be said to General Zotov for this.
painting “Storm of Plevna”
Another anti-hero of the capture of Plevna is considered to be General Schilder-Schuldner, about whom the soldiers composed an offensive song: Schilder-Schuldner General, He approached Plevna, He killed five thousand, And reported to his superiors: “It’s difficult!”.
And, I must say, this assessment was given according to merit. A characteristic feature of Schilder-Schuldner's conduct of hostilities was frontal attacks on Turkish fortifications without preliminary reconnaissance.
Vasily Vereshchagin. “After the attack. Dressing station near Plevna”
The poor supply of the Russian troops, stretched across the mountains, also had an effect: the soldiers were malnourished, the wounded lay in hospitals for several days awaiting proper care.
artist Alexey Kivshenko. “Surrender of Plevna.” Emperor Alexander II accepts the surrender of the fortress from the wounded Osman Pasha
True, in the troops of General Skobelev (as opposed to Schilder-Schuldner, called Achilles), the soldiers for some reason were well-fed, dressed and shod, received all the necessary help and behaved cheerfully.
In general, if we evaluate the actions of the Russian troops during the capture of Plevna, then success took place (not for the first time) thanks to the moral and volitional qualities of the soldiers and the competent actions of individual senior officers.
Soon, as you know, Bulgaria was liberated, and on March 3, 1878, in the holiday town of San Stefano near Constantinople, a peace treaty was signed between Russia and Turkey. Under its terms, Turkey was obliged to pay 1,41 billion rubles in indemnity, of which 1,1 billion were repaid by territorial concessions - Ardahan, Kars, Batum, Bayazet, Dobrudzha, the islands of the Danube Delta and Snake Island in the Black Sea.
An autonomous principality of Bulgaria was formed from the Danube to the Aegean Sea, and from the Black Sea to Lake Ohrid. On March 9, the Turkish Sultan sealed the agreement with his personal seal.
In the first two years of its existence, the Bulgarian principality was to be governed by a Russian commissar, at whose disposal was a 50-strong corps. The demarcation of borders was entrusted to the Russian-Turkish commission. The prince was elected by the population from representatives of dynasties that did not rule in the Great Powers. Formally, Bulgaria was still under Turkish protectorate, which was expressed in the payment of a penny tribute, but even this status was half a step away from real sovereignty.
However, little further depended on Russia, which fell into international isolation after the end of the war with Turkey. The treaty signed in San Stefano was declared “draft” and its revision took place on July 13, 1878 at the Berlin Congress, and it was the provisions on the Bulgarian issue that underwent the greatest revision.
According to the new treaty, Bulgaria was divided into three parts:
1) a vassal principality from the Danube to the Balkans with a center in Sofia with a prince elected by the population, whose candidacy was later approved by the Sultan;
2) the Bulgarian lands south of the Balkans merged into an autonomous province of the Turkish Empire - Eastern Rumelia with a center in Philippopolis, under the control of a Christian governor-general, appointed by the Sultan for 5 years with the consent of the Powers (he became a Bulgarian Phanariot who served in the Turkish Foreign Ministry - Aleko Bogoridi ). The province received its own representation and gendarmerie, formed on the principle of religious proportional representation;
3) the lands of Macedonia up to the Adriatic and the Aegean Sea returned to Turkey without any changes in status. In other words, a significant part of the Bulgarian people again fell under the Turkish yoke.
According to Bismarck, who closely observed Russian policy in the Balkans, “the liberated peoples are not grateful, but demanding...”, and the reaction in Serbia, Romania, Greece and even in Bulgaria itself to San Stefano was clear evidence of this. Only the huge mass of the Bulgarian peasantry supported him unconditionally.
The national intelligentsia reacted very negatively to the loss of Dobruja, considering the Danube to be the only fair Bulgarian-Romanian border. Serious claims were made by the Bulgarian public regarding Adrianople and Thessaloniki, which remained in Turkey.
This historical preamble was given for a better understanding of what has guided Bulgarian society in its relations with Russia for the last one and a half hundred years.
In post-Soviet Bulgaria, it is generally accepted that the imperial period, during which the country was liberated from Ottoman rule, cannot be revised at any stage of Bulgaria’s existence. Like, the Russian brothers liberated the Bulgarian brothers - eternal honor and praise to them!
However, the hostile attitude towards Russia that exists in some circles in Bulgaria began not yesterday, but in 1885, when the pro-German government came to power. Things got to the point where diplomatic relations were severed for a long time between Russia and Bulgaria.
The next cooling of Russian-Bulgarian relations occurred in 1913, due to the war between Serbia, Turkey, Greece and Romania on the one hand, and Bulgaria on the other, over the Ottoman inheritance. The Bulgarians were then very angry with Russia for its support of Serbia, despite the fact that the tsarist government had absolutely no reason to play along with the still unfriendly Bulgaria.
Further, as we know, Bulgaria found itself in a coalition with the enemies of Russia and the USSR in two world wars, and already in the post-Soviet period it joined NATO.
Not only in Sofia, but also a number of Russian sources, sometimes start a bagpipe that Bulgaria has no claims to the Russian Empire (as we found out, it does), while the USSR is guilty of imposing a communist regime. They say that after the victory in World War II, Moscow had no reason to interfere in Bulgarian affairs, since the Germans were not based on its territory, and not a single Bulgarian entered the occupation forces on Soviet soil.
All these songs about brotherly love are about nothing. All the time that Bulgaria was an ally of Nazi Germany, it took part in aggression against the USSR. Yes, not to the same extent as Romania or Hungary, but still...
So, for example, since 1938, the military organization KO “Bulgaria” of the German military intelligence Abwehr operated in Varna and Burgas, carrying out espionage and sabotage and terrorist activities against the Black Sea Fleet and objects of the Soviet northern Black Sea region.
German Nazis in Bulgaria
KO "Bulgaria" was in close cooperation with the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry and intelligence, which transmitted information to the Germans about Soviet diplomats and missions in this country. In addition, in 1941, the Petrovsky Union (the local branch of the National Organization of Russian Intelligence Officers) was founded in Bulgaria - a collaborationist emigrant organization that recruited into the Russian Security Corps and collected intelligence information for the Germans.
Russian collaborators in Bulgaria
The ROK, as you know, “became famous” for its exemplary servility to the German masters, as well as punitive actions against Yugoslav partisans, as a result of which Tito ordered the emigrant representatives not to be taken prisoner. And the Bulgarians themselves made their mark during the occupation of Yugoslavia. As the saying goes, “my friend’s enemy is my enemy.”
Bulgarian punitive forces in Serbia
On top of that, during the war, a unit of the well-known Italian 10th Flotilla MAS, which fought against the USSR Black Sea Fleet, was based in Varna. The lost Soviet submarines Shch-204 and Shch-211, found near Varna, were the work of Italians and German aircraft operating from Bulgarian territory.
Bulgarian occupiers in Greece, 1941
Let's not forget that at the end of the war in Bulgaria he dug in Armenian fascist Garegin Nzhdeh, who worked closely with the SS and Abwehr. Apparently, sunny Bulgaria was quite a hospitable place, since all sorts of enemies of Russia and the USSR flocked to it.
Thus, the USSR had every right to Sovietize Bulgaria. If only so that she would not once again be carried into enemy trenches. And, as we can see, the USSR and the Bulgarian communists disappeared, as Bulgaria jumped into the NATO trench. Apparently for fraternal reasons.
Bulgaria to NATO
What to do if only the Bulgarian communists, with the support of the USSR, were able to temporarily neutralize and expel representatives of the Russophobic intelligentsia from the country...
Bulgarian neo-Nazis today
Out of fraternal feelings, apparently, since 2015, local pro-Western authorities have not invited Russian representatives to Sofia to celebrate the Day of Bulgaria’s Liberation from Turkish rule, which is directly related to Russia’s military efforts.
The few decent citizens of Bulgaria
But that is not all. In the last few years, reports have been coming from Bulgaria about regular attempts by some local political figures to revise even such a seemingly unshakable value as the liberation of the country and people from the Ottoman yoke. From time to time, more and more distinct mutterings are heard in the local press, as if “the damned Russians tore Bulgaria out of the affectionate embrace of mother Turkey.”
Where the wind blows from is well known. Bulgaria, long home to Muslims and ethnic Turks, is in the crosshairs of Turkish neo-Ottomanism. Citizen Sultan Erdogan does not skimp and contributes some money to promote Turkish interests in Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and other non-Islamic countries.
It is doubtful that Erdogan will be able to achieve vassalage from these states similar to that of Azerbaijan, but he is quite capable of causing division and confusion in these impoverished and demoralized states.
Not long ago, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov wanted “Bulgaria to be free from any yoke.” It seems that this time too we cannot do without Russia’s help. We will have to get involved in the battle for the minds of the Bulgarians - guided, perhaps, not so much by considerations of brotherhood, but by the national security of the Russian state. The United States is preparing Eastern Europe for war with Russia, but the Bulgarians, even being members of NATO, will not shoot at the Russians, not so long ago the chairman of the headquarters of the Bulgarian Military Union assured us.
Unfortunately, as we see from the experience of Ukraine, after treatment by the Americans, residents of even the country closest to Russia began to shoot at Russians. Therefore, in Bulgaria, albeit belatedly, we will have to join the fight.
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