President Plevneliev: High Time to Tell Truth about Bulgaria's Past

It is time Bulgarians give their children a truthful account on the communist era that the country went through between 1944 and 1989, President Rosen Plevneliev said on Tuesday.

During an international conference marking the 25th anniversary of the outset of democratic changes, the head of state asserted that "half-truths are the [Bulgarian] transition's biggest mistake."

"It is high time State Security [DS, the Communist-era security structures] becomes a thing of the past and Communism makes its way in history schoolbooks,"Plevneliev also underlined.

He reminded of a recent survey showing that only six percent of young Bulgarians (aged 16-30) know anything about the events in Bulgaria after WWII.

Plevneliev said Bulgarians had failed to allow access to files of DS agents and to condemn "the totalitarian regime's crimes."

At the same time he pointed out some missteps that Bulgaria made during the transition, reminding that cadres of DS had held key political positions and that privatization was flawed, "non-transparent and to a certain extent oligarchic."

"Assets worth nearly EUR 30 B were sold for nearly nothing," he went on, placing Bulgaria "probably" in the same group with Serbia, Ukraine and Russia, the countries that in his view carried out the "worst privatization in Europe."

He blamed educational and cultural institutions for failing to show any commitment to introducing the Communist era to children.

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