p. 14
Ilianski Base: Located in Ilientsi, a site for many military bases. It was there that those murdered by the “rogue agents” were buried. It became a residential district in 1961, and today is an industrial and commercial region.
p. 15
Rogue Agents: Unidentified persons who were in charge of murdering political opponents, much like the death squads in Latin America. The authorities used the term to justify the multitude of unsolved murders in 1925. Political agents—army and police reserve executioners acting on behalf of the government—abducted people in the middle of the night, and tortured and killed them, using government buildings for the purpose, such as the Public Safety building, military establishments, and police stations, but sometimes killed people right in the street. The government never took responsibility for any of these goings-on, blaming instead so-called “rogue agents,” as though the persons were acting of their own volition rather than following orders.
p. 16
Sakarovs, Bakalovs, and Kabakchievs: Bywords stemming from the names of Nikola Sakarov, Georgi Bakalov, and Hristo Kabakchiev. They were representatives of the communist party whom the government detained, but never allowed into the hands of the “rogue agents,” probably because it considered them more collaborators than opponents.
p. 23
Denounce the agrarian union: In June of 1923, the coalition of bourgeoisie parties took down the government of the Agrarian Union Party. In September of that same year, the Communist Party led an uprising, which was brutally suppressed.
p. 29
Tsankov, Russev, and Vulkov: Professor Aleksandar Tsankov (1879–1959) was a Bulgarian economist and politician who served as prime minister of Bulgaria from 1923 until 1926. General Ivan Rusev (1872–1945) was the Minister of Interior in Tsankov’s government during his years as prime minister. General Ivan Valkov (1875–1962), was a longtime chairman of the Military Union; he also served as Minister of War from 1923 until 1929. Sheytanov mentions the three as a clear paradigm of a concentration of military power that has nothing to do with the people—the prime minister and his two generals.
p. 29
Aleksandar Stamboliyski: (1879–1923) was a leader of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union, and a notorious anti-monarchist who lead the opposition to Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria. He became prime minister from 1919 until June 9, 1923, when he was ousted in the military coup. He was brutally tortured and murdered after attempting to raise a rebellion against Tsankov’s government.
p. 29
Georgi Dimitrov (1882–1949) and Vasil Kolarov (1877–1950): Dimitrov was the first communist leader of Bulgaria, from 1946 until his death in 1949; from 1904 to 1923 he was Secretary of the Trade Unions Federation. Kolarov was a member of the revolutionary committee that launched the September Uprising in 1923. In June 1923, when Stamboliyski was deposed through a coup d’état, Stamboliyski’s Communist allies, who were initially reluctant to intervene, organized an uprising against Aleksandar Tsankov. Dimitrov took charge of the revolutionary activities, and resisted for an entire week. But he and the leadership then fled the country and received a death sentence in absentia.
p. 36
Du lieber Augustin: From the song “Ach du lieber Augustin,” whose lyrics “Everything is gone!” tell of the desperation of the Austrian people in the late seventeenth-century, as they feared they would be besieged by the Turks.
p. 49
Vor! Vor! Pomogite!: From the Russian, “Вор! Вор! Помогите” meaning “Thief! Thief! Help!”
p. 50
Molodets!: From the Russian, “Молодец!” meaning “Brave man!”
p. 51
Lalyo Marinov: Real name of the Bulgarian poet and writer who went by the pseudonym Lamar. He became close to Geo Milev, and published his own magazine Novis, but unlike Milev or Sheytanov did not succumb to the government and lived until 1974.
p. 52
La Ruche: An experimental school founded in Rambouillet in 1904 by teacher and anarchist Sébastien Faure. At certain times, the school would have up to forty children from low-income families, as well as orphans. La Ruche’s mission had been to develop libertarian and independent principles within children, to eradicate the feeling of class division: all children were treated equally. This educational experiment ended in the winter of 1917, however, when the school was shut down due to its inability to sustain itself economically.
p. 53
Peter Kropotkin: Russian philosopher, writer, and prominent anarchist advocating against capitalism, feudalism, and what he argued were the inefficiencies of a central government.
p. 55
It snowed from New Year’s until after Christmas: Until the 1950s, Bulgaria used the Russian Orthodox calendar, and Christmas fell on January 7th.
p. 62
Atanas Damyanov: Damyanov (1876–1953) held the biggest printing monopoly in Bulgaria—United Printers for Publishing and Graphic Arts. He was the sole and enduring shareholder of the controlling interest of the company and the newspapers under its umbrella: Utro (Morning), Zarya (Fireworks), Dnevnik (Journal), and Ilustrovana Sedmitsa (Illustrated Week), Nedelno Utro (Sunday Morning) and Kukurigu (Cock-a-doodle-do).
p. 67
The Third Rome: The story of the “Third Rome” (“the second Constantinople”) started in fourteenth century Bulgaria, under the reign of Tsar Ivan Alexander. He aimed to raise the prestige of his land and capital, introducing the name Tsarevgrad Tarnov (in comparison to the Slavic name of Constantinople—Tsarigrad), which was later supported by the words of Patriarch Callistus I of Constantinople in that “T
rnovo is the capital of the Bulgarians and second both in words and deeds after Constantinople.”
p. 68
Karl Radek: It is said that Radek was keen on telling political anecdotes and double entendres. One such went as follows: “They told Stalin that Radek was telling jokes about him. Stalin became furious and called for him in the Kremlin. Radek walks in and says, ‘My, what nice living quarters you have, Comrade Stalin!’ Stalin responds: ‘Soon, every Soviet man and woman will be living in something just like this!’ Radek responds, ‘Let’s get something straight, Comrade Stalin, I’m the one who tells the jokes!’”
p. 70
Jukums Vācietis: Vācietis (1873–1938) was a lieutenant in the Russian Imperial Army, who quickly rose up the ranks of the Russian armed forces following the October Revolution. During the war, he was heavily wounded near Warsaw, but in January 1918, he squashed the uprising led by the Polish Corps of General Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki. By April 1918, he was already commanding the Latvian Riflemen. This same regiment is responsible for chasing away the anarchists, and in July he drowned the Socialist Revolutionaries, the SRs, in blood and mutiny.
p. 74
Alexander Blok: Blok (1880–1921) wrote “A Girl Sang in the Church Choir” (1905) to commemorate the mass shootings of the Saint Petersburg workers during their peaceful march toward the Winter Palace to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II. (This happened in January of 1905 and is known as the Bloody Sunday Massacre.) According to another interpretation, the poem is a sad commemoration of the Battle of Tsushima (May 1905), and the Russian squadron that fell to Japan in the war.
p. 95
Hristo Botev: Hristo Botev (1848-1876) was a brilliant Bulgarian poet and revolutionary, widely considered a national hero. He was killed having not yet reached 30 years of age, as a vaivode of 200 rebels fighting to liberate Bulgaria from Ottoman Rule. Two years after his death, Bulgaria was finally freed from 500 years of enslavement. His words, “He who falls in battle for freedom lives forever,” are eternally engraved in the Bulgarian consciousness like a battle cry.
p. 124
Geo Milev, “September,” 1924; Translated from the Bulgarian by Peter Tempest, 1961
p. 138
Dimcho Debelyanov: Debelyanov (1887-1916) was a beloved Bulgarian poet and author whose premature death in the First World War cut off a promising literary career.