In 1978, Bulgarian dissident and writer Georgi Markov was killed in London. 36 years later a monument to him was unveiled in Sofia by three Bulgarian presidents. And immediately controversy started in the public domain as to exactly how should one of the greatest Bulgarians of the 20th century be depicted and honored. This has once again come to show that, to this day, Georgi Markov's name and work continue to divide us rather than unite us. Who was the real Georgi Markov? And how did his transformation take place from a respected writer, playwright and screenwriter into an inconvenient journalist and emigrant to Britain, an unforgiving critic of the communist regime in Bulgaria and the autocratic power of Todor Zhivkov to the point of forcing this same regime to issue an informal death sentence for him?
Georgi Markov was one of the creators of the popular TV drama series "At Every Kilometer", portraying in a heroic and romantic light the resistance movement against fascism in Bulgaria. And this same man who was very close to those in authority, who enjoyed all the privileges of the "artistic nomenclature" nurtured by the Communist Party and the government, gave up all advantages, refusing to live in the parallel world of the realized socialist utopia. He left it in 1969 only to become its most acute critic and denouncer to the end of his life. He moved to Italy to live with his brother and two years later settled in London, where he began working for the Bulgarian section of the BBC. His dream, however, was to make a name for himself also there as a writer and playwright, whose plays were put on stage. And this really happened in 1974 when his play "Archangel Michael" won an award at the Edinburgh Festival. Georgi Markov also started writing a novel about his experiences abroad, but quickly shifted his focus to life in Bulgaria, with which he had parted physically, but not spiritually. That was how his In Absentia: Reports about Life in Bulgaria appeared, broadcast weekly on Radio Free Europe in the late 1970s.
These broadcasts are an encyclopedia of an era, but also a form of insightful understanding of the psychology of a nation and an impartial historical and political analysis. Tsveta Trifonova, researcher of Georgi Markov's life and work, said: "Georgi Markov belongs to the intellectual elite of Europe, because he rose above any ideology and system as a true European humanist with an anxious conscience, responsible for the moral values of democracy and the future of mankind..."
Georgi Markov used to say that he was wavering between the desire to "forget everything that was before - both the good and bad" and "the irresistible and painful impulse of man to speak up and say things openly." Asked about the reason to write the Reports, he said, "It is a desire which commands me not to concede my Bulgaria to those random people who happen to be born into it unwittingly, who live there unwittingly and who will pass away unwittingly, as they neither know it, nor love it nor care about it because they are blind and silly servants of a foreign country and a foreign will. This desire compels me to tell what I know, just as it was."
The Golden Sound Archives of the Bulgarian National Radio keep track of one of Georgi Markov's In Absentia Reports. It was dedicated to his fellow writers, those talented and enlightened people like Konstantin Pavlov and Radoy Ralin - so different from the then literary minions of the regime who were generously receiving from it money and houses:
"One of my colleagues, a writer, went to the Concert Directorate to arrange a literary reading for some occasion. Of course, the literary reading would be with free admission. Employees of the Concert Directorate who were real traders told him that despite the free entrance, the audience would hardly rush to the literary reading, but if you include Radoy Ralin in the group of writers who will read, then you can fill the big Bulgaria hall. This conversation conducted in the mid-60s very vividly reflects the enormous popularity of Radoy Ralin in Bulgaria. In recent years, Ralin's popularity not only did not decrease, but it seems to me that it has reached inconceivable proportions.
Radoy Ralin is a unique phenomenon in the life of centenarian Bulgaria, but it is very deeply rooted in the Communist reality. I have always thought that Ralin's satires are the most compelling example of the great moral and material corruption in the country, the validated lack of principles, the vulgarian mentality and all those well-bred communist virtues such as cowardice, subservience, ruthlessness against the weaker, blind following of orders from above. All this was the fertile soil that created the popularity of Ralin in a society where the public conscience was nonexistent, as Radoy emerged as its solitary albeit strong mouthpiece. "
Through his In Absentia Reports Georgi Markov opened a window to the truth for the people living under the social lid of the totalitarian state. Authorities and secret services in communist Bulgaria never forgave him for doing this though. On September 7, 1978, while waiting at a bus stop at the bustling Waterloo Bridge in London, the writer felt stabbing pain in his thigh as a passer-by near him dropped an umbrella. Four days later Markov died in hospital. His murder remained unsolved, since any cooperation with the Bulgarian authorities at the time was impossible for the British police. But due the manner in which it was perpetrated and due to the date of the assassination coinciding with the birthday of communist leader Todor Zhivkov, for many people at the time and also today it was clear who issued the order for the brutal silencing of the free voice of a man who, from a distance, though his in absentia radio reports gave freedom to the Bulgarians.
Today Georgi Markov continues to stare at us from the monument on Journalist square in Sofia and seems to be saying flippantly to passers-by: "A hero is no longer a hero once he gets his due payment either with a tombstone or with a posthumous pension".
English Rossitsa Petcova
