Since last week Bulgaria's citizens have the opportunity to look in the mirror and try to understand themselves better. The mirror is held by German publicist, journalist and translator Thomas Frahm who has been living in Bulgaria in the past fifteen years and views Bulgaria as his second motherland. The German readers owe a lot to translator Frahm, because so far he has translated into German some of the most emblematic Bulgarian novels. Since last week the Bulgarian audience has the chance to read his latest book entitled “The Two Halves of the Walnut - a German in Bulgaria.” The book was published in German in 2014. The most reasonable question asked to a German who speaks Bulgarian fluently is how did Bulgaria turn into his second motherland?

“Men do not have a lot of opportunities when they have to move abroad - it is ether because of a woman, or because they have to start a new job. In my case it was the first scenario”, Mr. Frahm joked. “In Bulgaria I worked as a correspondent for a German Radio. I used to make interviews and translate them in German later. Thus, I managed to learn spoken Bulgarian in the first three or four years of intensive work in the radio.”

When you see Thomas Frahm for the first time the first impression is that he is a very funny and smiling person. His book also contains entertaining elements, yet it has a large portion of insight.

“Before reading this book the foreign readers must forget everything they know, or think they know about Bulgaria. I would advise people to refrain from making quick judgements, because those who make quick judgements miss the opportunity to find a new world and Bulgaria is full of unknown worlds from Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the years following the liberation form the Ottoman Rule, the communist period, the years of transition from communism to democracy, etc. However, one should accept Bulgaria without any prejudices and clichés, in order to discover unknown worlds”. Thomas Frahm went on to say.

Mr. Frahm tries to answer with his book the wide-spread cliches which exist in the Western world such as: Bulgaria is the most loyal ally to the Soviet Union, a country with rampant corruption, poverty and crime, a country of poor beggars who live in the streets of the western metropolises. Thomas Frahm has not found until today an answer to the question why Bulgaria continues to be a stain in the conscience of most people from Western Europe?

“In the first pages of the book I tell an anecdote whose author is Bulgarian writer Dimitar Dinev who lives in Vienna. He was sick and tired of explaining to everyone where Bulgaria was situated on the map and for the purpose he came up with the following riddle: Its northern neighbor is Romania, Serbia is its western neighbor, on the south it is bordered with Turkey and Greece and on the east it is bounded by the Black Sea. Most of Dinev's interlocutors answered that there was nothing in between these countries. I can't find any logic explanation why Bulgaria is so much an unknown land? Perhaps, Germany finds the only reasonable answer in the history - Bulgaria was probably the only state from the former Eastern Bloc which was not part of Germany or Austria-Hungary. However, there is another explanation, too: the Bulgarians who live in Western Europe know foreign languages, they are well-educated and do not attract media's attention, because they are well-integrated in these societies.”

Despite the sad ascertainment, Thomas Frahm managed to keep the smile of the readers on their faces with the following lines in his book: On a continent which raised the slogan of tolerance and proclaimed human rights….it is entirely normal that Bulgarians living abroad are offended when they feel they should not be there, because the ones they communicate with can't remember and do not know about the country they come from. In that case even calm people may be obsessed by a patriotic feeling and mention the fact that Bulgaria existed as a state back in the 7th century when Germans were still living in caves dressed in bear furs. How do Bulgarians look like some fifteen years after Thomas Frahm's arrival to Bulgaria?

“The change is huge and I am not sure whether Bulgarians notice it. Fifteen years ago, an unreal image of the western world was circulating in people's minds, which could be compared to talking during sleep only. Of course, it was due to the forty five year-long isolation of that country. It was followed by difficult years of transition and a series of disappointments which made people sober to some extent. Bulgarians continue to adore the Western world and in particular Germany, but it has nothing to do with the unreal image created some fifteen years ago. Now most people can merely travel freely and judge the world through the prism of their personal impressions.”

English: Kostadin Atanasov