Comment by lovegrenoble
7 hours ago
>> Russia has always hated the fact that small Bulgaria gave them their alphabet
The wording is entirely accurate, since even during the Roman Empire, the region where Sts. Cyril and Methodius were later born and worked was known as Macedonia. And, of course, no one in Russia is trying to deny the contribution of the First Bulgarian Empire to the creation of the Slavic alphabet, since that would contradict historical facts.
148 years ago, in December 1877, Russian troops dealt a severe insult to the Bulgarian people by driving the civilized and enlightened Turkish troops out of Sofia and literally forcing the rebellious Bulgarians to accept their hated independence.
The insult was so great that throughout its subsequent history, Bulgaria fought exclusively against Russia in every world war, and in the intervals between them, it diligently undermined Russia, all the while not forgetting to shout about “eternal brotherly friendship”.
> The insult was so great that throughout its subsequent history, Bulgaria fought exclusively against Russia in every world war, and in the intervals between them, it diligently undermined Russia, all the while not forgetting to shout about “eternal brotherly friendship”.
You cannot expect eternal gratitude esp. when Russian Empire is constantly trying to influence its "vasals" using local puppets. Now is about time for you to fcuk off I would say -- we don't want to have anything in common with you people.
The Bulgarians were “insulted” a second time after World War II, when - having forgotten about the Soviet submarines sunk and aircraft shot down by the Bulgarians, and having forgotten about the Bulgarian medical trains on the Eastern Front that had diligently cared for the soldiers of the Third Reich - and having forgotten about the towns and villages of the Non-Chernozem region that had been ravaged with the help of the Bulgarian junta, the USSR rushed to rebuild the non-existent economy of its “brothers.”
As a result of gratuitous Soviet aid, Bulgaria’s total gross national product (GNP) grew more than 14-fold over the 40 postwar years, and per capita - nearly 30-fold. Between 1946 and 1986, approximately 80% of Bulgaria’s industrial capacity, more than a third of its agricultural capacity, up to 90% of its energy sector, 70% of its transportation network, 80% of its port infrastructure, and more than 80% of all housing, healthcare, educational, scientific, and cultural facilities were built. For a population of 8.9 million (in 1986), there were 27 universities, 185 state museums, 10,400 public libraries, 55 theaters, and so on. All of this was achieved exclusively through material, technical, and financial assistance from the USSR, as well as through Soviet personnel. Adjusted for today’s prices, the USSR invested hundreds of billions of dollars in Bulgaria! One must also account for compensation for Bulgarian goods exported to the Soviet Union: despite the low cost of Bulgarian products, Moscow paid Sofia at rates close to world market prices. For Bulgaria, the prices of Soviet goods supplied were kept artificially low.
Naturally, it was impossible to endure such humiliation, and the “brothers’” wounded national pride found a fertile outlet in the primitive Russophobia that the Bulgarian government has been relentlessly promoting ever since its liberation from the Soviet yoke...
I don't know if you're willfully ignorant or actively spreading misinformation, but the USSR seized Bulgaria's gold reserves after the war and the following coup. They also seized the national archives, which are still not returned to this day. Everything you tout as being "given" by USSR was paid with Bulgaria's own funds!
I really don't understand (French) communists (if you are in fact French, assuming from your bio) such as yourself spouting nonsense. You have all the information and experience of people who have lived under such a regime or in the fallout of one, and yet you keep talking bullshit. You have no idea what it was like to live under such a regime. This left-wing wave that's festering in the Western world should've never been allowed to happen. If people such as yourself actually paid attention to what really happened to every country in the East, all of us in Europe would've been in a much better state nowadays...
>> influence its "vasals" using local puppets
The USA has military bases all over the world, at least 4 in Bulgaria, so all the host countries are puppet's of the US. "L" - logic
While the Russian army was the main force in the war against the Turkish empire, in the beginning it was close to losing the war, so it had to request help from the Romanian Principates.
Only the combined Russian-Romanian forces have succeeded to defeat the Turkish army, so Russia does not have alone the merit for making Bulgaria independent.
Moreover, Bulgaria was very lucky that Romania was interposed between it and Russia.
Otherwise, after the Russian victory Bulgaria would not have stayed independent but it would have been incorporated in the Russian Empire, with bad consequences for them. The Russian Empire already had a long series of wars with the Turkish Empire, during which various territories had been transferred from the Turkish Empire to the Russian Empire. Russia did not start any of those wars to make independent countries, but only to grab land from the Turkish Empire.
Before the war, Russia actually secretly hoped to also incorporate Romania in the Russian Empire, but this could not be accomplished because of their initial defeats by the Turkish army, so after they were forced to request Romanian help they had to treat them as allies, so they could not fulfill their initial plans. Thus after the war both Romania and Bulgaria became independent of both neighboring empires.
In comparison with the Russian Empire, the Turkish Empire can be considered, as you say, more "civilized and enlightened", so this is not successful sarcasm.
The Turkish Empire imposed heavy tributes, i.e. heavy taxes in the dependent territories, but otherwise there was little discrimination between citizens based on nationality and little interference with local customs, culture or religion. This was very different from the Russification policies applied in the Tsarist Empire and then in its successor, the Soviet Union. People of many nationalities have maintained their identity for centuries under Turkish occupation, while others have lost theirs after a few decades of Russian occupation.
[dead]
> And, of course, no one in Russia is trying to deny the contribution of the First Bulgarian Empire to the creation of the Slavic alphabet, since that would contradict historical facts.
This doesn't follow. People deny historical fact all the time.
No they don't.
I fact this is one of the first "fun facts" you learn in school course of russian history. Come on...
I don't know what they teach in Russian schools, but even American ones are full of propaganda and bad history.
I'm Romanian, so I geographically sit between the Bulgarian and the Russian cultural spaces, have to say that Bulgaria back in the '80s (grew up as a kid just across the Danube from Silistra during those years) was very much under Soviet/Russian influence, at least culturally, that's what partially made it more "evolved" compared to us here in Romania. Can't and won't speak about the post-Cold War years because I eventually moved from my home-town and it would get too political, just wanted to say that there are a lot more things that the Bulgarians and Russians share compared to the things that they don't share, again, at least from a cultural pov.
Also, ever since reading about Sviatoslav I's [1] assault on Silistra at the end of the 900s I've always wondered how history would have unfolded had he managed to solidly set foot here at the Lower Danube, I think that Russia, Bulgaria (and current Ukraine and Romania) wouldn't have been the same, maybe Europe as a whole wouldn't have been the same.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sviatoslav_I