Guest article by Veleslav Grivov (who will appear on my podcast today)
You see – at the time – Bulgaria was allied with Nazi Germany and when plans for the deportations of Bulgarian Jews(1) were leaked to the public, there was a resistance from the Bulgarian people. The news about deportations was greeted with outrage. Protest letters were sent both by members of the government and the opposition to tsar (king) Boris III. There were also protest letters from the Writers’ Union, the Lawyers’ Union and the Doctors’ Union, and eminent citizens went to petition the tsar in person at the palace. There was pressure also from the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and its leaders. For example, on March 9, 1943, in my native City of Plovdiv, around 1,500 Jews were detained awaiting deportation by train. Metropolitan (archbishop) Kirill (or Cyril) of Plovdiv (a decade later to be elected a Patriarch of the Church), upon being informed, immediately sent a protest telegram to the tsar and then contacted the Chief of Police in Plovdiv threatening civil disobedience. According to some reports, he stated that he would lie across the railway tracks if necessary. He then went to the school where the Jews were being held, jumped over the fence and spoke to the detainees assuring them he would go wherever they go. Metropolitan Stefan of Sofia (the capital of Bulgaria) made a personal appeal to the tsar and the Holy Synod (the highest authority of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church) sent an official plea on March 22, 1943.
We only saved 48,000 Jews – the ones that were Bulgarian citizens before the war (with over 90% of them being born and raised in Bulgaria). Yes, a big portion of them were internally displaced and many sent to labor camps, and their rights discriminated but – they survived. Unlike over 11,000 Jews from Macedonia and Thrace. Those were territories originally Bulgarian and returned back to Bulgaria as a condition to become an ally of Nazi Germany. (Another condition was Romania to return territories in Northeastern Bulgaria, including the port City of Varna, that it occupied after WWI). Those territories were administered by Bulgaria and the Jews there were sent to Treblinka in Nazi-occupied Poland for extermination. Only a few dozen of them survived. So, no – we did not save all the Jews. (And neither did Oskar Schindler – except the ones on his “Schindler’s List”). But it was a noble and selfless effort by my Bulgarian ancestors to save people that had been marked for extermination.
But why would my Bulgarian ancestors act like that? Well, I think, it is simple – we the Bulgarians – have experienced oppression and extermination for almost 500 years.
Let me present a brief historical perspective, draw some analogies and provoke some thought.
In 1396, Bulgaria fell under the Ottoman Turks and did not exist as an independent state until our Liberation from the Ottoman Empire in 1878 after the Russo-Turkish Liberation War of 1877-1878.
IVAN ALEXANDER OF BULGARIA (Wikipedia)
As with any historical event, there were quite a few contributing factors to the fall of Bulgaria under the Ottoman Turks. Some were external – such as the Black Death around 1354 that led to severe depopulation. And some were internal – as the fracturing of the central power of the monarch. I refer to tsar Ivan Alexander who reigned for 40 years from 1331 to 1371. He had three sons from his first wife. Two of them (including his first-born and heir) were killed in battle with the Ottoman Turks. Roughly one third through his reign he divorced his first wife and sent her off to a monastery, then he married the Jewess Sarah who converted to Christianity and took the name of Theodora. He had a son with her – Ivan Shishman, whom Ivan Alexander designated as a successor. This led to the split of Bulgaria into three kingdoms.
Ivan Shishman was the ruler of the main one with the capital Veliko Tarnovo. When Tarnovo was besieged by the Turks in 1393, he was not there and the defence of the city was led by the last Bulgarian Patriarch Euthymius (Evtimiy). According to a contemporary Bulgarian scholar and cleric – Gregory Tsamblak, the city was not captured because of the Ottoman military strength but due to treason. It is alleged that the traitor was of Jewish origin – named Lazar Cohen, who did this on orders from The Sanhedrin.
Over the next few centuries there were numerous attempts at liberation (including by foreign European armies) but all were unsuccessful since the Ottoman Empire was strong and Europe was week.
(Side bar: There is one interesting explanation for the weakening of the Ottoman Empire by the American sociologist and historian James W. Loewen in his book “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong”. In essence, his hypothesis is that the discovery of the New World led to depreciation in the value of gold. The main income source for the Ottomans was from their control of the main East-West trade route and it was in gold. But once gold was discovered in the New World, the Ottomans could no longer finance their military strength.)
During the five centuries of oppression, Bulgarians were subject to slavery, forced conversion to Islam and numerous taxes. Bulgarians that converted to Islam, mainly in the 16th and 17th century, are called Pomaks. A few did it voluntarily for economic and social benefits (for example, Muslims sometimes could pay 10 times less in taxes and were preferred for government positions), while a substantial majority was converted through force – either convert or be beheaded. Speaking of taxes – there was the so-called devshirme (devşirme) – usually translated as “child levy” or “blood tax” by which the first born male child would be taken at a young age, converted to Islam and raised by the Ottoman state, and turned into a janissary (a member of an elite military infantry corps). Quite interestingly, Jews were never subject to devşirme.
Paisius of Hilendar (Wikipedia)
Aside from the enslavement by the Ottoman Turks, there were also attempts at spiritual and religious influence and conversion of the Bulgarians by the Greek clergy. But it was the Bulgarian Orthodox Church through its priests and monks that kept the Bulgarian spirit from being extinguished. It was a Bulgarian monk – Saint Paisius of Hilendar – who, following “In the Beginning Was the Word”, in 1762, wrote a very thin book “Slavono-Bulgarian History (История Славяноболгарская)” and started traveling around the country, and sharing it with whomever would listen, thus spreading the Word. This is considered the beginning of the Bulgarian National Revival. It took over another century for the Bulgarians to organize and mount an uprising in April of 1876, and, through a lot of pain, to achieve a national independence.
Now, let me draw a particular attention to this rebellion and the events that followed it since I find it quite analogous to the current situation in Palestine. The organizers of the uprising did not expect it to be successful. After all, purely in military terms, no one can expect around 10,000 rebels, poorly equipped with flintlock rifles and a few cannons made from cherry tree trunks to prevail over a regular Turkish army numbering in the hundreds of thousands, equipped with German, made by Krupp, modern rifles and cannons, plus an irregular army (Bashi-bazouk) – numbering in the tens of thousands.
Please, note the statements by two of the main leaders and organizers of the 1876 April uprising. The first one is Georgi Benkovski who was a fiery and charismatic leader of the rebels’ “Flying cavalry”.
“My goal has already been achieved! In the tyrant’s heart I have opened such a fierce wound that will never heal. And Russia – let her command!” He spoke these words immediately after the suppression of the uprising while watching the burning Bulgarian villages.
The second one is Todor Kableshkov: “I placed my hope not in the bullet of the flintlock rifle, but in its thunder, which was to reach the ears of Europe, of brotherly Russia…”
There is also Hristo Botev – a poet and revolutionary.
He probably did the biggest contribution to the uprising. You see – he led a detachment of Bulgarian volunteers (roughly 200 men strong) that hijacked the Austro-Hungarian passenger steamship “Radetzky” and forced the captain Dagobert Engländer to change course and transport the rebels to the Bulgarian port of Kozloduy on the river Danube.
More importantly, the uprising had already started and no one in Europe knew about it. There was no Tik Tok and live-streaming of video then, and no social media. Botev used the ship’s communications to send a message about the uprising to major European capitals.
The captain wrote of Botev’s “civility, energy and temperament”, and agreed to transport the rebels to Kozloduy. Upon arriving in Bulgaria, the revolutionaries dropped on their knees and kissed the earth, saying goodbye to the passengers and the captain, who saluted them by waving his peaked cap.
As you can see, the leaders and the organizers of the 1876 April Uprising did not expect to win – they wanted the world to notice the struggle of the Bulgarian people for Liberation by provoking the Turkish Ottoman empire to commit atrocities against the Bulgarian population. And in that they succeeded. The 1876 April Uprising was severely put out by the Ottoman Empire with over 30 000 Bulgarians being slaughtered – the majority of which were women and children. A lot of women were repeatedly raped and sold into slavery.
There was no Tik Tok then, but there were still eyewitnesses and if I were an American, here is one great American that I would be proud of and choose as a role model instead of the current demonically possessed creatures that pass as celebrities and elites – who support the ongoing genocide of the Palestinians that has actually been ongoing for the last 75 years. His name is Januarius MacGahan.
After visiting Philippopolis (nowadays called Plovdiv) on July 28, and Peshtera and Pazardjik on August 1 and 2, MacGahan travelled to the village of Batak, and sent the paper a graphic report of what he saw:
“…We looked into the church which had been blackened by the burning of the woodwork, but not destroyed, nor even much injured. It was a low building with a low roof, supported by heavy irregular arches, that as we looked in seemed scarcely high enough for a tall man to stand under. What we saw there was too frightful for more than a hasty glance. An immense number of bodies had been partially burnt there and the charred and blackened remains seemed to fill it half way up to the low dark arches and make them lower and darker still, were lying in a state of putrefaction too frightful to look upon. I had never imagined anything so horrible. We all turned away sick and faint, and staggered out of the fearful pest house glad to get into the street again. We walked about the place and saw the same thing repeated over and over a hundred times. Skeletons of men with the clothing and flesh still hanging to and rotting together; skulls of women, with the hair dragging in the dust, bones of children and infants everywhere. Here they show us a house where twenty people were burned alive; there another where a dozen girls had taken refuge, and been slaughtered to the last one, as their bones amply testified. Everywhere horrors upon horrors…”
Following the publication of MacGahan’s articles, William Ewart Gladstone (a British statesman, politician and four nonconsecutive times a Prime Minister) wrote a pamphlet called Bulgarian Horrors: “I entreat my countrymen”, he wrote, “upon whom far more than upon any other people in Europe it depends, to require and to insist that our government, which has been working in one direction, shall work in the other, and shall apply all its vigor to concur with the states of Europe in obtaining the extinction of the Turkish executive power in Bulgaria. Let the Turks now carry away their abuses in the only possible manner, namely, by carrying off themselves….”
I only wish today there were statesmen in the US, UK and Europe like Mr. Gladstone that can say: “Let the Zionist Jews carry themselves off the land of Palestine!”
Other prominent Europeans, including Charles Darwin, Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo, Ivan Turgenev, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Giuseppe Garibaldi, spoke against the Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria.
The world outrage that followed the massacres after the 1876 April Uprising was strongest in Russia and culminated in Russia declaring war on Turkey on April 24, 1877 for the liberation of Bulgaria. The Russian Emperor Alexander II (Tsar Liberator) listened to the will of his people to act.
I’ll only briefly discuss two details of that war that seem relevant to today’s events in Palestine. The war was not easy for Russia. The Ottoman Turkish Army was better equipped than the Russian Army and had very strong defensive fortifications along the river Danube. Still, the Russians managed to break through and capture a big portion of Northern Bulgaria. They even managed to cross some of the Balkan Mountains passes and liberate the City of Stara Zagora that is in Southern Bulgaria.
(Side bar: The Balkan Mountains range serves as a natural barrier that geographically splits Bulgaria into two parts – Northern and Southern.)
But with the help of the British Empire (remember the Jew Disraeli) the Ottomans managed to transport an entire Army Corps (around 48 000 soldiers) from Albania to stop the Russians on their way to Istanbul. Note that the Corps was led by Suleiman Pasha. (Pashais a military title equivalent to general.) He was a French Jew and his original name was Solomon Levi Yavish.
The forward Russian detachment (of around 12,000 men) that liberated the city of Stara Zagora included a Bulgarian Volunteer Corps (around 5,000 men) commanded by infantry general Nikolai Grigorevich Stoletov. The Corps had its first battle-christening in the ensuing battle for Stara Zagora. That battle was lost but they managed to save the Samara Flag and retreat to guard the Shipka Pass.
(Side bar: The Samara flag is a Bulgarian battle flag, a national shrine, one of the most important military symbols of the Bulgarian Army. It was created by nuns from the town of Samara, Russia, and was donated to the Bulgarian Volunteers during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 – 1878. It is the only flag in the history of Bulgaria awarded with the Order of Valour. These are its two sides.)
The flag became famous during the Battle of Stara Zagora. The flag company came under frontal enemy fire. The standard-bearers, non-commissioned officer Anton Marchin, non-commissioned officer Avksentiy Tsimbalyuk and volunteer (private) S. Minkov, died. Known in history is the feat of the Russian lieutenant colonel Pavel Kalitin , who with heroic efforts and the cost of his life managed to save the flag from Turkish captivity. It was taken from the battlefield after fierce hand-to-hand combat by the spontaneously formed Ensign Group – non-commissioned officer Toma Timofeev, volunteers Nikola Korchev , Pavel Malkia, D. Minkov, Popov, Radev, Mitsov, Donev, Nikola Krastev, the Ossetian Nikolay Karaev-Dudar and others.
“Heroes! Give me the flag!”, cried lieutenant colonel Kalitin, when he saw that the standard-bearer S. Minkov had been killed, and taking the flag handed to him, he commanded: “Follow me, heroes!” and pulled to raise his horse. At that moment, two enemy bullets, one in the neck, the other in the chest, removed the hero Kalitin from the horse. Popov and I were right next to him. When we came down and lifted our commander from the ground, he was motionless, dead.” – 3rd company commander, lieutenant Stefan Kisov.)
Still, the battle was lost and the forward detachment had to retreat in order to defend the Balkan Mountains passes. After the battle, the Ottoman Turks committed a genocide in the city. The Stara Zagora massacre was the mass murder of approximately 14,000 civilian Bulgarians, accompanied by the burning and complete destruction of the City of Stara Zagora. The difference here from the previously mentioned Batak massacre was that it was carried out by the regular Turkish army and not the irregular Bashi-bazouk units. The rapes and murders continued for over two weeks.
Instead of trying to cross the Balkans through some of the less challenging mountain passes, Suleiman Pasha decided to attack the Shipka Pass that was defended by the Bulgarian Volunteer Corps and around 2,500 Russian troops. It was a fateful decision that he made – perhaps out of hubris after the Battle of Stara Zagora or perhaps out of desire to break the Bulgarian national spirit by trying to cross the pass guarded largely by Bulgarian units. So he threw the bulk of his army (around 30,000 men) against the defenders (5,000 Bulgarians and 2,500 Russians). The Bulgarians and Russians made a gallant stand. Near the end of the fighting, having run out of ammunition, they threw rocks and bodies of fallen comrades to repulse the Ottoman attacks. The defensive victory at the Shipka Pass had strategic importance for the progress of the war. Had the Ottomans been able to take the pass, they would have been in a position to threaten the supply lines of the Russian forces in Northern Bulgaria.
There were other notable moments of valor and true heroism in that war and it seemed like a true battle between Good and Evil. Well, it was glorious. Russia won and the Turkish Ottoman Empire was forced to acknowledge its defeat in the Peace Treaty of San Stefano (Yeşilköy) on March 3, 1978 (March 3rd is The Bulgarian National Holiday). A new Bulgarian state was to be created based on territories where at least 80% of the population defined themselves as Bulgarians.
It wasn’t meant to be. The Great Powers at the time and namely Great Britain did not want or rather feared a new country on the Balkans that would be grateful to Russia and thus under Russia’s influence. So, there was the Congress of Berlin (13 June – 13 July 1878) on which no Bulgarian was present and basically two thirds of the lands defined as Bulgarian were returned to the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Only one third was the newly created Principality of Bulgaria. The rest, including Macedonia and Thrace mentioned earlier, was given back to the Ottoman Empire. One part – Eastern Rumelia was given an autonomous status as a province within the Ottoman Empire with its capital my native City of Plovdiv. Northern Dobrudja was given to Romania and some lands (Western Borderlands) were given to Serbia.
If you have read so far you might have developed if not hatred for the Turks and Muslims, at least some revulsion and that is not my intent. So let me give you some more historical information.
Not all Turks and/or Muslims were barbarians during the massacres following the 1876 April Uprising and the Russo-Turkish Liberation War (1877 – 1878). Here is one example of a true and remarkable story(2):
At the beginning of May, 1876, after Batak had been torched and its inhabitants had been slaughtered, the Bashi-bazouk hordes, led by the bloodthirsty Ahmed Agha Barutanlij, were headed for Peshtera. Thirsty for more plunder and blood, they rode towards the small mountain town. Their yatagans (Ottoman swords) had massacred thousands of Bulgarians in Batak, now it was the turn of the “giaours (infidels)” in Peshtera.
A few hundred meters from the town, Ahmed Agha and the Bashi-bazouks spot a lone figure – it is the venerable Osman Nuri Effendi. (Effendi is used as a title of respect for men in Turkey, equivalent to Sir. The difference is that it’s placed after the name.) He is the chief mufti (Muslim cleric) of Peshtera. He is held in unprecedented and unheard of esteem among the people, he has great authority and his word does not split.
Ahmed Agha pulls the reins and his horse stops a few meters from Osman Nuri. Their eyes meet – Osman Nuri looks him calmly in the eyes:
“Go back, Ahmed Agha! Only through my corpse will you enter Peshtera” – the cleric speaks in a firm commanding voice.
Ahmed Agha is dumbfounded and angry, but there is no way he can ignore Osman Nuri Effendi’s words, he pulls back on the reins and goes back, and with him his entire bloodthirsty horde. The Bashi-bazouks did not enter Peshtera, and the population of the town was saved – not a hair fell from the heads of the people, thanks to the brave act of the cleric.
By a way of clever deception, Osman Nuri Effendi also saved the neighboring small town of Bratsigovo. He sent a letter to the commanding Turkish general Hafiz Pasha who was about to give the order of attacking the rebels in Bratsigovo and massacring the civilian population, informing him that he had received a letter from Istanbul that instructed the local authorities that due to the coronation of the new Sultan Murad there would be celebrations and there shouldn’t be any bloodshed. It’s worth noting that the title mufti indicates both a religious and judicial authority. So, I guess, there was no way Hafiz Pasha to not heed the cleric’s message.
Osman Nuri Effendi also took a few orphans from Batak and raised them as his own children.
Immediately after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 – 1878, Osman Nuri Effendi cooperated with the Provisional Russian Government to build the new Bulgarian state, and was awarded the Russian Order of “St. Alexander”, fifth degree, for his services.
The clergyman was later a judge in the City of Pazardjik and Chief Mufti of the Principality of Bulgaria (1884 – 1888), and from 1893 received a pension from the National Assembly for his services to Bulgaria.
Aside from history, I’ll share my own personal experience. I’ll admit – to my greatest surprise – wherever I have traveled abroad and have met a Turk, I have been treated quite respectfully as a komshu (komşu – neighbor). My wife is an attorney at law and has a few Turkish clients. She has told me that, in general, Turks are exceedingly more respectful than our fellow Bulgarians. And I cannot describe the level of empathy and willingness to help (including material help and volunteers) in Bulgaria that I saw after the recent devastating earthquake in Turkey. Well, in return, Turkey helped us with the fighting of wildfires that ravaged Bulgaria this last summer. In the spirit of komshu.
So, you see, I presented this historical account in an effort for you, dear reader, to better understand and appreciate my support as a Bulgarian for Palestine. I am white, Christian Orthodox and I know that my people have been the victims in massacres carried out by Muslims. Perhaps by Arabs – since a big portion of the Arab countries were part of the Ottoman Empire. There might have been even Palestinian soldiers in the regular Ottoman army. Let me point out that I know of NO evidence of that. What I DO know is that genocide, and especially the murder of children and women is the work of Satan.
Why women and children? Let’s think about this – Who is Satan? Lucifer? Wasn’t he (THEY? 😉 an Archangel – supposedly a perfect and omnipotent being? Blinded by his Vanity, he rebelled against God because God created New Life in us – the supposedly “imperfect”? He was cast down from Heaven and he hates us the imperfect and un-chosen souls. That is the root cause of his Big Hatred for the creation of New Life which is best represented by the Mother and Child.
And who are the “chosen people”? Well, it seems they are the ones that have been doing his bidding – the ones that have been committing genocide – justifying it, encouraging it and bragging about it, and at the same time denying it!? A truly psychopathic behavior.
(Side bar: French historian and author Laurent Guyénot, in his article “Israel’s Biblical Psychopathy”, makes a very compelling argument that Israel – both as a state and international organized community – is actually acting as a psychopath and that the God of Israel is actually the Devil.)
Shaitans (Шейтани) is the word the brave and valiant Chechens use. They should know. They fought them in Chechnya and are now fighting the Zion-Nazis in the Ukraine.
And now Shaitans are committing the genocide in Palestine. And in Lebanon. And they have been doing it in Syria, in Libya, in Iraq, in Yemen, in Iran, in Afghanistan…
I really hope that Christians and Muslims, and people from other religions or people that are not religious, Europeans and Arabs, and people in the rest of the world, realize the danger of Satan and Satan’s worshippers and fight back.
The people of the so-called countries of the Axis of the Resistance have been fighting back – the Syrians, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Iranians and of course the unwavering warriors Ansar Allah.
I only wish that other Muslim/Arab countries, especially the ones that have greater clout – like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey – would take a firmer stand against the Zionists in Israel and the USA. It is not my place to suggest the means and methods of how to act. But here is one question for their leaders. What would we tell God when the time comes to meet Him and He just asks: “What did you do to stop the killing of My children?”
As for the Jews… I started this writing stating that there was a time that I was really proud of my Bulgarian ancestors for saving the Jews living in Bulgaria proper from extermination during the Second World War. Now – I am not sure how I would act, especially when knowing about the role of the Jews in the silent genocide of the Bulgarians over the last 35 years. This merits a separate writing which is to follow. For now, let’s just say – it seems that we are all Palestinians.
We are building a case and I only try to present a Bulgarian perspective…!
Veleslav Grivov
Sources and Notes:
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_Bulgaria
(2) https://bulgarianhistory
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