How Russia, “moved by love,” lectured the Bulgarian president but was rebuffed

Recently, Bulgaria marked 140 years since the nation’s liberation from the Ottoman yoke, and on that solemn occasion, it hosted a guest from Russia, namely Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’ Kirill. However, they still have not fully recovered from such a visit, because the patriarch overshadowed the celebrations with high-profile, imperialistic statements.

It all began with the fact that President of Bulgaria Rumen Radev, while attending the festive parade, thanked for bringing about the nation’s liberation not only the Russian army, but also other peoples, listing the Romanians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Finns, Poles, and Latvians, Radio Liberty reports. “Russia did not look up to Europe for assent. Moved by love, weakened and bereft of any political support in the world, it began fighting,” said Kirill and added: “It was not Poland, nor Lithuania, but Russia! I found it hard to listen to all these references to the participation of other countries in the liberation. Neither the Polish nor the Lithuanian sejm took part in the decision to commence the war with the Ottoman Empire. I hope that the media hear us clearly and will convey my disappointment with this incorrect interpretation.”

Of course, such political statements, made by a clergyman, displeased the authorities and citizens. The president himself said in response that he “respects every drop of blood shed for Bulgarian land” and noted that the Russian army had been multiethnic, and his country honored the memory of every ethnic group involved, according to dnevnik.bg.

However, the harshest statement on this occasion was made a few days ago by Deputy Prime Minister of Bulgaria Valeri Simeonov in an interview with the BNT TV channel. “This Kirill is not descended from heaven…he is not the messenger of the Lord God or Jesus Christ. Kirill is known as the cigarette metropolitan of Russia. Starting in 1996, he got 14 billion dollars from importing excise-free cigarettes,” Simeonov was quoted as saying by The Sofia Globe. According to him, Kirill owns a private plane, a villa in Switzerland, and a watch worth 30,000 dollars, “and he has the insolence to give judgment in front of the Bulgarian President.” “And this is a spiritual person. A spiritual person, when he mentions the victims of these battles, he takes out their bones and throws them out of history. What is he? He is not an Eastern Orthodox cleric. He is Agent Mikhailov, of the Soviet KGB, that is proven. A second-rate Soviet cop coming to me to say what is true and not true? Excuse me,” added the deputy prime minister.

It should also be recalled that during his visit to Bulgaria, Kirill made notable anti-Ukrainian statements as well: live on the national Bulgarian TV, he said that the Donbas events did not happen due to Russia’s armed attack on Ukraine, but were rather a “civil war.” The Ukrainian embassy in Bulgaria responded promptly to such a statement and emphasized that the words of the patriarch were an “anti-Ukrainian provocation,” and “the Bulgarian national TV was used by the Russian Orthodox Church’s leadership as a platform for making public anti-Ukrainian statements, synchronized with the official position of the Kremlin.”

It should be noted that Den’s editorial team devoted to the relations between Ukraine and its southern Slavic sister Bulgaria a history-themed book entitled My Sister Sofia... As Den/The Day’s editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna noted in the preface to the book, “the histories of Ukraine and Bulgaria read like a story of two sisters separated in early childhood. They went on to grow up in different ‘families.’ Instead of us and Bulgaria looking at and studying each other, we looked at Moscow for a very long time. That is, at the very force that wanted to divide us... We peered into this ‘black hole’ of civilization, and black holes are known for their strong gravitation capacity.”

The Day asked the experts to comment on Bulgarians’ attitude to harsh statements of the Russian guest and tell us why the patriarch, having been invited to Bulgaria for a national holiday, dared to make such harsh statements about the country which he was visiting.

“KIRILL COMBINED SPIRITUAL POSITIONS WITH A GREAT-POWER IMPERIAL STAND”

Ognyan MINCHEV, a political scientist, Doctor of Sciences, Professor of Political Science at the University of Sofia:

“I think this comment by Patriarch Kirill was inappropriate, because nobody said that the Ukrainian, or Finnish, or Lithuanian state liberated Bulgaria. It was said that beside Russians, representatives of many other ethnic groups fought and died in the ranks of the Russian army which waged the liberation war against the Ottoman Empire, including Ukrainians, Finns, Lithuanians, Latvians, and Poles, and even one Japanese samurai died at the front of this war, thus making Bulgaria bound by this blood, by the brotherly ties it created. That what made an unpleasant impression on Patriarch Kirill is the traditional Bulgarian position – to thank and honor representatives of all those peoples who fought and died for the liberation of Bulgaria. This is nothing new, it is not connected with the membership of Bulgaria in the EU or NATO, this has been the classical official position of not only the Bulgarian state, but also the average Bulgarian for 140 years.”

Do you think it is acceptable for a clergyman to make such political statements?

“It sounded weird, because the patriarch, at least formally, is not a representative of the Russian state, he is the spiritual leader of the Russian Orthodox Christians. And as an Orthodox patriarch, he must know that protecting some particular ethnic, state or national interests against other ethnic, national, and state interests is a heresy called phyletism. After all, the Orthodoxy is a universal message of Jesus Christ and Christianity to the faithful and the world as a whole, it is not a message to the Russian Empire, the Bulgarian or Ukrainian state. Thus, the position of the patriarch in this regard is ethnophyletic or imperial-phyletic.”

“THE PATRIARCH’S LECTURE WAS BASED ON ANTIQUATED LIES AND RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA CLICHES”

Ivo INDZHEV, a former director of the Bulgarian News Agency, former deputy president of the Association of European Journalists, blogger, writer:

“It is clear to me why Kirill made such a statement: most likely, to reach out to the Bulgarians who have been strongly infected with pro-Russian feelings for a century and a half. The Russians use history as a tool for exerting influence in present-day Bulgaria. They cannot do anything to the modern Bulgarians, for example. Studies show that no more than six percent of Bulgarians would follow the Russian example in government affairs. In other words, the Bulgarians do not want Bulgaria to be similar to present-day Russia. At the same time, many people still believe that Russia did a good service to the Bulgarians in the past by waging the Russo-Turkish War in 1878. And this is the focus of Russian propaganda. They want to build on this to squeeze out every possible drop of the Bulgarians’ friendly feelings.

“They operate in different ways in different countries. But in Bulgaria, they stick to such a policy. They have directed the fifth column of Russian-influenced people in Bulgaria to switch its attention away from September 9, which was considered the National Day during the Soviet occupation of the so-called socialist Bulgaria. But with the fall of communism, it no longer works for propaganda. So they have decided to go back to a 19th century event. March 3 is the day of the signing of the preliminary peace agreement between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The National Assembly voted it as the new Bulgarian National Day in the early 1990s, after the Communist rule ended. Every year, we celebrate a date that draws us back to Russia, Russia, Russia... it is a major propaganda opportunity for Russia’s influence in this country. That is why I write books about the true history of relations between Russia and Bulgaria, trying to gather evidence and facts that show that, firstly, the actual purpose of the war was to seize the Bosporus and the Dardanelles as the points where the Black Sea and the Mediterranean begin. It was an obsession of the Russian Empire. And secondly, Russia tried to prevent any outside force from helping in the liberation of Christians and ‘that swamp,’ as they described the Balkans, and to forestall European influence there. These two goals were hidden by surprising feelings about the Bulgarians, because Russia’s idea was to include them into the Empire. Russia had fought 12 wars with Turkey in centuries past, but had never mentioned the Bulgarians, and then, they unexpectedly came to liberate this country because of a Bulgarian uprising in the Balkan Peninsula and a brutal manner in which the uprising had been suppressed by the Ottoman authorities. So this is about history, history, history...

“In this way, Russia exploits the feelings that propaganda maintains and creates. And unfortunately, there are many Bulgarians who still believe in the ‘facts’ being spread by Russian propaganda.

“And what the patriarch actually did was returning to focusing on history, as he lectured the Bulgarian president on how the latter and all the Bulgarians had to be grateful only to Russia and nobody else. And I have written in my article that there is evidence that, for example, people who were born in the territory that is now Ukraine paid just as steep price in blood to defeat the Turkish army. But the patriarch did not even mention Ukraine, although there is evidence that a number of the fallen came from outside the Russian Empire even. And most recruits of the imperial army volunteered to fight in the Balkan Peninsula.

“The Russian patriarch’s lecture was based on antiquated lies and Russian propaganda cliches. And they demand that Bulgaria be grateful for what Russia did 140 years ago, and use it to support Vladimir Putin’s policies today, which is absurd. What is the connection between Putin and 19th-century Russia? The consensus is that there is no connection, but despite this, they again and again try and behave as they have become used to over a long time. The patriarch tried to tell the president and the Bulgarians with his speech how Russia would like Bulgaria to behave.”

ON THE REACTION OF THE BULGARIANS

“I think they have made a big mistake. After all, despite being pro-Russian, many Bulgarians are outraged at the behavior of the Russian patriarch in Sofia, chiefly because he behaved like a politician who, moreover, felt superior to his hosts. This is not a normal behavior for a visitor, even for a politician, let alone a person who is a spiritual leader, or at least pretends to be one. Therefore, I dare to say that if the Bulgarians are to be liberated by the Russians once again, then this time, it will be liberation from pro-Russian feelings and the Russians themselves. Putin proved himself so highly capable of liberating the Georgians from pro-Russian feelings, and then repeated it with the Ukrainians. Perhaps Bulgaria will be the next nation which the Russians will liberate from historic pro-Russian feelings. And this is ultimately good news. This may sound cynical. But it is not my fault that I note the behavior of Russia and its attitude to Bulgaria.

“The president needed more than a week to react. This happened yesterday [March 13. – Ed.], during a visit to a military base near Sofia. He said that Kirill arrived in Bulgaria as a patriarch and returned to Russia as a politician.”