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The Bolshevik Revolution and Russia's Civil War forced into exile several generations of educated people. Hundreds of thousands of Russian émigrés escaped across the Black Sea and settled down in 1919-1921 in Serbia and Bulgaria.White Russians
The spiritual movement of the White Brotherhood was founded by the Bulgarian philosopher Petar Deunov when he returned to his country after studying in the US. His followers passionately recall the beginnings of their movement.White Brotherhood
In March Bulgaria's pro-Nazi government decided to defy Berlin and halt the deportation of Bulgaria's 50.000 Jews. This was down to the actions of one man - Dimitar Peshev. Just two years later he found himself on trial for his life.Dimitar Peshev
In September the Red Army crossed the Danube and entered Bulgaria. It ignored the announcement of the Bulgarian government to leave the Axis and declare war on Germany, hoping to avoid a Soviet occupation.Dual Liberators
The arrest and execution after questioning in the Soviet Union of General Nikola Mihov, a prominent Bulgarian army commander at the turn of the XX century, a national hero of the Balkan Wars and WWI.My beloved uncle
Bulgarian Communist leader and Komintern apparatchik Georgi Dimitrov returns from Soviet exile. Andrei Vishinsky pays a visit to Bulgaria's new Communist rulers.Soviet Justice in Bulgaria
Encouraged by Moscow and with the Soviet Army present in the country, the Bulgarian communists decided to move more forcefully to destroy the parliamentary opposition.Liquidation of the Opposition
This propaganda newsreel presents the collectivisation of the Bulgarian countryside as an almost joyful process. In reality it was methodically planned and brutally executed.Brutal reform
Early Communist newsreel reporting that in central Sofia a main hub for spreading of propaganda has opened its doors, "the hub will follow closely the Soviet example".Moscow Propaganda
Four years before "Bulgaria’s Stalin" Valko Tchervenkov was toppled, we see his successor Todor Zhivkov boarding a plane with an official Bulgarian delegation on its way to a "World Peace Congress" in Warsaw.Peace Fighters
This propaganda newsreel from 1950 presents the Soviet Communist leader Stalin as "Bulgaria's best friend".Bulgaria's best friend
Former camp inmates tell of the horrors in a Bulgarian Communist Forced Labour Camp. Some 12,000 men and women passed through these camps.Blackberries in the Camp
A former camp inmate tells of her years in Bulgaria's Communist Forced Labour Camps. The Belene camp on the Danube alone is believed to have held 7,000 people in 1952.What saved us
The three men briefly running the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death--Khrushchev, Bulganin and Mikoyan--arrive in Sofia. A day earlier they had been in Belgrade, trying to heal the rift with Tito going back to 1948.Moscow-Belgrade-Sofia
After the Hungarian revolution and the Soviet assault on Budapest in October and Nomember, oppression followed quickly in Sofia. This propaganda newsreel shows the new Bulgarian Communist Party leader Todor Zhivkov.Autumn 1956
Kolyo Vutev is one of the few surviving inmates of the Lovech camp, the harshest of Bulgaria's Communist camps.The Youngest Inmate
East German ORWO home movie from a holiday in Bulgaria. Featuring Sofia, Melnik, Rozhen, Rila, the Black Sea coast.Bulgaria Summer
Todor Zhivkov, Bulgaria's Communist leader for 35 years, regularly met writers and artists. Here is one of those gatherings in the mountain resort of Borovets.The Arts Guilds
Amateur film footage showing the capital Sofia and the Black Sea coast, filmed by two East German tourists.Summer in Bulgaria
Amateur film footage from our collection, shot by West German tourists on holiday in Bulgaria in the early 1970s.Visit to Bulgaria
The story of Maestro Alipi Naidenov - conductor, musician, teacher and mentor to hundreds of young Bulgarians, who crossed the "Iron Curtain" to follow their passion for music in Italy.Cold War Music
In that winter the populations of two remote Muslim villages of Communist Bulgaria staged a remarkable protest against the state, spending three months camped out in the main square. Their action was crushed by the authorities.Mountain Republic
The Bulgarian Communists followed closely the Soviet example in every aspect of life -- in the theory, as well as in the practice. Their efforts to copy the ritual, the body language of their Soviet masters, were often striking.Moscow Lessons
Georgi Markov was one of the few open critics of Bulgarian Communism, a writer and a broadcaster, a BBC journalist.Georgi Markov in a BBC Studio
Rare footage filmed by a British couple, holidaying in Bulgaria under the watchful eye of the State Security.Sunny Beach
Georgi Markov’s mother, Rayka Markova, on BBC Panorama. Broadcast only months after her son’s death.Why they killed my son?
Angel Toshev from Sofia about the obligatory military conscript service of his generation.700 days in the army
Footage filmed by a West German visitor, who travelled up and down the Bulgarian Black Sea coast in 1981.Summer in Bulgaria
Soon after the introduction of martial law in Poland in December 1981, the new military leader General Jaruzelski received a warm welcome in Sofia from Bulgaria's leader Todor Zhivkov and his entourage.Yaruzelski in Sofia
Bulgaria's Communist leader Todor Zhivkov at a traditional parade on the day of the Cyrillic Alphabet and Bulgarian Culture in Sofia.24 May Parade
Kostadin Chakarov, an advisor and personal assistant to Todor Zhivkov, the Communist ruler of Bulgaria, remembers the rituals of power of that time and the annual parades to mark the takeover in 1944. Symbols of power
Photographer Dimitar Deynov accompanied the Bulgarian Communist leader Todor Zhivkov around the world for decades. He remembers a surprise moment in the desert with the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. .Man of the Desert
Maria Kichukova from the remote village of Brashlyan on Bulgaria's border with Turkey remembers the often sinister attempts to stop people running away from the Communist state to the West - via Turkey.Cold War Frontier
Tens of thousands of Bulgarians mark Labour Day by marching past their Communist leaders in Sofia. Unknown to them, just four days previously a fire at Chernobyl had caused the world's worst nuclear disaster.Chernobyl Sofia May Day Parade
Maria Zabova, who has been the bell ringer of Sofia's Alexander Nevski Cathedral for more than thirty years, about her faith under Communism and the risks then to be persecuted for coming to church.A Story of Faith
A reporter's visit to Sofia's Central Prison, testing the limits of the official Glasnost and Perestroyka line.Sofia Prison
BBC World Service Radio interview with Bulgaria's first democratically-elected President, Zhelyu Zhelev, at the time still a dissident.Bulgarian Spring
Georgi Simidchiev - an eyewitness to the dramatic events around the mass exodus to Turkey of 300.000 Bulgarian ethnic Turks in the summer of 1989 and the campaign against them by the Bulgarian authorities.
Mass Exodus
December 1989. Students in the Bulgarian capital Sofia call for the abolition of Article 1 of the Constitution of the country. It would mean dropping the ruling role of the Communist Party across society.Students demand freedom
The future Foreign Minister of Bulgaria Solomon Passy - confident that one day his country will be a member of NATO.A Day in Life
President Petar Stoyanov brought political enemies together to agree on a settlement that would pull the country back from the brink of civil unrest.Back from the Brink
Dimitar Tuchkov - a collector, restorer, entrepreneur from Sofia about a unique XIX century house in the Bulgarian capital.Sofia Time Machine
28 years after the end of Communism, Bulgaria still has no museum about the time it acted like the Soviet Union's 16th republic. An eclectic collection was put together in Sofia in 2011, focusing on art from that period.Museum1944-1989
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