Lora Krumova's question about Count Ignatiev angered Kostadin Kostadinov. With it, she hit the core of the myth that provides the breeding ground for nationalists – about Big Brother in the face of Russia. By Georgi Lozanov.
Nationalists are the masters of scandal in Bulgarian politics. Ever since the time of Volen Siderov, as soon as they get on the air, they attack journalists. They want to appear angry, spiteful and dangerous, probably because that's how they imagine the "real Bulgarian". However, in the words of Shakespeare, it is the opposite: "To the wicked and evil the world is wicked and evil/and he sees in everyone his own like".
Bulgarians, similar to our nationalists, hardly exceed the percentage of their own voters. And it has recently begun to fall with the emergence of the more moderately Eurosceptic party of Rumen Radev. And one could assume that Kostadin Kostadinov's pre-election participation in the program "Na fokus s Lora Krumova" on Nova TV would not pass without a major scandal.
Krumova's question about Count Ignatiev
The apple of discord was the question raised by the presenter about the role of Count Ignatiev as the Russian ambassador in Istanbul, about – in his words – But even if it weren't for that, it would have been different, because Kostadinov's prior intention to cause a scandal is evident from his efforts to continue it after the broadcast. It wasn't enough for him that while he didn't stop insulting Lora Krumova, he wanted her to apologize for her question, but as he himself announced on social networks, he now wants the same from the television management. If they don't do it, "we need to approach it differently". He leaves us to guess what kind of person he will be in order to please the "true Bulgarians".
It is true, however, that despite Kostadinov's readiness to create a pre-election scandal, the question about Count Ignatiev caught him off guard and he was unable to say anything other than attacks on the presenter until the end. Apparently, she had found a question with which to hit the core of the myth that provides the breeding ground for nationalists – for Big Brother in the person of Russia, who alone cares for us and our national destiny is to follow him. The job of myth is, as Roland Barthes said, to put history on board nature and make our subordination to Russia not seem like a political choice, but to carry the irrevocability of a natural phenomenon. Such a mythological transfer was carried out in plain text by Georgi Dimitrov at the time with the slogan: "Friendship with the USSR is as vital as the sun and air for every living being".
Lora Krumova showed enviable calm and behaved at a high professional level, despite the intolerable communicative situation in which Kostadinov sought to put her in order to force her to fulfill his wishes. The comments that she lacked historical competence to lead a conversation about a possible connection between Count Ignatiev and the hanging of Levski are unfounded, since the journalist is not a historian. He needs a general culture to know that there is such a public debate, hot enough to reach institutional proposals for renaming the street "Graf Ignatiev". And not only in Sofia, but also in Varna. Kostadinov, as a "graduate historian", as he personally labeled himself, could have presented his point of view in the debate, but he preferred to pretend that he had not heard of such a person.
The host's question about Count Ignatiev was not an end in itself, but part of the fulfillment of the critical function of journalism towards candidates for power, which requires that they be asked about the contradictions in their position. In the case of "Vazrazhdane" it is an invariable one - the presentation of Russian interests as a Bulgarian national ideal, which was eloquently manifested in the program itself. Kostadinov, carried away by the glorification of Count Ignatiev, announced without any reservations that he was the "author of the Bulgarian national ideal". So that there would be no doubt that in the thinking of the leader of "Vazrazhdane" the Bulgarian national ideal was Russian, created by one of the most devoted defenders of Russian imperial interests (of Bulgarian ones, only insofar as they corresponded to Russian ones). And it did not even occur to him to include the hanged Levski at least as a "co-author". Probably because Levski had allowed himself to warn that "whoever frees us will do so in order to subjugate us into slavery again" and he had hoped that Bulgaria would free itself in contradiction to Russian interests. It is these interests that raise suspicions about the exact nature of Count Ignatiev's intervention, which he reported to the Russian Chancellor in a dispatch of January 30, 1873, and which has sparked debate about his role today.
The conversation probably wouldn't have reached Count Ignatiev if, to the host's question: "Do you think Russia will never have any appetites for Bulgaria if it is not in NATO?", Kostadinov had not answered: "Not only that it doesn't, but it never has! I'm telling you this as a historian".
Such a flat abuse of history can only rely on mass amnesia and no one remembering that during communism, Soviet satellite states were commanded from Moscow, otherwise the tanks would have come. And Bulgaria was so submissive that it set out to become a Soviet republic on its own, but they refused it from there, so that it would not become completely obvious that the power over it was already complete.
When the myth of Big Brother was shaken...
And here Krumova, guided by her journalistic reflex, instead of continuing along the expected line - to what extent the Red Army was a liberator or an occupier, with the question of Count Ignatiev struck at the foundation of the myth of Big Brother. The myth is – "three-story", as many liberations of Bulgaria should be attributed to Russia. Her contribution only to the first - from the Ottoman Empire, should be accepted with gratitude, regardless of what exact interests guided her. But not the false idealizations that grew on it and became the subject of the interview with Kostadinov. The second "liberation" is completely according to Levski's prophecy about the new slavery. While the USSR participated in the liberation of Europe from one of the great totalitarianisms of the 20th century - fascism, it imposed the second great totalitarianism - communism on half of Europe. And Bulgaria lived in it for 45 years, when our Big Brother was as meticulous as in Orwell's novel.
The third "liberation" is coming, God forbid. It is clear from whom - "The EU is harmful! It is as if we are under Turkish slavery!", says Kostadinov, and Russia works from sunrise to sunset to free us from the authentic national ideal of our ancestors - the integration of Bulgaria into Western European countries and the democratic world. And when the myth of Big Brother is shaken, it panics and declares everything that does not support the myth to be a lie, and whoever dares to do so - a Janissary. Because that is how the "third liberation" may not come and "Vazrazhdane" may not play the dreamed role that the communists had after the "second liberation".
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This text expresses the opinion of the author and may not coincide with the positions of the Bulgarian editorial office and the State News Agency as a whole.