Primary Sources
Browse Items: Embassy cable
U.S. Embassy Assessment of Political Change in Bulgaria
On November 10, 1989, the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall, leading figures in the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) forced Todor Zhivkov, Bulgaria’s leader for more than 35 years, to resign. A coalition of opposition groups formed the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) on December 7, to coordinate efforts to “speed up the processes of democratization,” the group asserted in a statement….
Ethnic Minority Demonstrations in Bulgaria
Since the 1950s, the Bulgarian government conducted campaigns to assimilate Macedonians, Pomaks (ethnic Bulgarian converts to Islam), Gypsies, and Turkish Muslims by requiring them to substitute Slavic names for their own. The government also prohibited the use of the Turkish language in public and forbid Muslims from practicing their religious and traditional cultural activities. In response….