Money creates a lot of stress, globally…people in Bulgaria are so financially insecure, that they cannot express their culture, which is fabulous. I believe that is a temporary situation and the Bulgarian spirit will prevail because we are people blessed with a nation, culture, and land, but at present lacking sensible and reliable state organs. But it wasn’t always like this and it has to go away. Here is why:
Not long ago we were under a regime with a great philosophy and utopic inapplicability. I am one of the kids, which were raised with poems about the Party, and when I asked my parents what that is, they told me I have to grow up to learn, and I presumed it’s one of the “dirty” words.
It was a time best described by George Markov, the genial reporter in Bulgaria, who wrote what he thought in times when that could get him in trouble. Said he:
“We are the sample of existence without the right of choice and sometimes we wonder, that a man can exist like this. We have seen how persons disappear, how the human individuality is humiliated, how the spiritual life of a whole people is corrupted – so that it may be brought to an uncomplaining herd… The line of our development is the strangest maze. If today you are a hero, tomorrow you can be a traitor, on the next day they may hang you, and on the day after that – you can be vindicated and a monument can be raised in your honor. Party – it’s the most real and the most imaginary of concepts.
We are the sample of existence without the right of choice and we sometimes ask ourselves is it possible to exist like this?”
This political culture of our state organs made the Bulgarian people…prone to an agreement, to many things which are not to our benefit as a nation. It made us forget that “our sky is so deep, our stars are so huge, and our land is endless, but it can be contained in our hearts.”
It was a good philosophy, wrong implementation.
For what’s in a Bulgarian’s heart? All the songs from childhood rush in: “high blue mountains, rivers and golden valleys, the sky like silk, this is my homeland…” The heart of the Bulgarian is hospitable, but after a series of wrong political choices – the Bulgarian does not have bread for guests. We are a brave people, but we got very frightened of the political miscarriage of the last few decades. The reasons for this are rather complicated, and almost no one is to blame, but facts are that we have lost our self-esteem as a nation. Now we want to conform with other nations – to reach them in a way….the young people directly leave for “the better living” – “free to wait tables and shine shoes” in a “normal” country. All the things that united us such as godliness (I don’t say religion) and courage were compromised. We have become quiet as mice, who look after their crumb and do not pay too much attention to what is outside the hole. I repeat, we have lost our self-esteem as a nation, because we are dignified, trustworthy, and powerful, our sign on the national flag is Leo, and our history knows persons brave as lions who have destroyed tyranny and kept the Bulgarian spirit alive in times when it was dangerous to be among the quick. Probably the most concrete word to describe the original Bulgarian spirit is passionate. People here do not greet you in the street, but they do befriend you and play backgammon with you, they prefer honesty to hypocritical, but advantageous behavior. We are a unique nation with incredible culture, folklore, language, and relationship with the land and we somehow have allowed ourselves to forget this, to despair and give up, which is sad. We are the American Natives of the Balkans – a people who is proud and lives close to nature, but now after the modern trends in the world, we gather in our big cities, buy boxes in them, which we call home, watch flowers and trees and animals on a TV… we are no longer unique, we are normal. I am one of this people, I also have closed myself comfortably in my personal preserve, like many young people who feel they are in an inadequate situation, but I am happy because I sense it is beginning to change. By what?
Volunteering. Our grandmas and grandpas volunteered to gather in the village every evening and hold their hands man to woman and dance our national dance until drops fell from their faces from excitement and flirt. They volunteered to work on the field and create a living for everybody even with the animals, who at that time lived with them, and were honored like people. Yes, I sense this spirit, when I wash the dishes, and my mother volunteers to wash the other half – because of what? She loves me. So I say fuck your money! They are no longer my reason to not feel good about myself. And soon they will be no one else’s. I suggest that we send our present government to the Bahamas, and open a place for a new one, made of volunteers, young, ambitious, balanced and spiritual, true leaders. And the passion in Bulgarian blood will continue to burn in the millennia.
