How and why did some of Hristo Botev's ideas come to life in Great Britain? - 2024-02-12 13:42:32

/ world today news/ It is no secret that we Bulgarians have long taken Bulgaria for granted. Today’s Bulgarian state, in a certain sense, where rightly, where not so rightly, is perceived by many residents of the country as a stepmother. Unfortunately, this feeling has been transferred to everything Bulgarian, which in our globalized and influenced by neoliberal ideas, is increasingly insulted, denied and rejected. It has become fashionable for Bulgarians to speak to each other in English, for signs on the streets to be exclusively in Latin, for our traditions to be the object of ridicule and malicious articles in the liberal media. Even “I’m Bulgarian” turned out to be a hindrance to non-governmental organizations…

But in this not very promising environment, my humble mercy saw a ray of hope from the most unexpected (at least for me) place…. In the distant and foggy Albion, it turned out that a significant part of the local Bulgarian community not only did not has given up on the Bulgarian, and on the contrary, intends to revive it.

The dear reader will imagine my surprise when I received an invitation to participate in the presentation of… a historical collection of mathematics, which is an old idea of Hristo Botev, revived by the London-based Bulgarian association Zavet.

More than 100 people attended the event at the Bulgarian Embassy in London, and the atmosphere was genuine, sincere and emotional. I emphasize this because here in Bulgaria, patriotic events are often shrouded in an aura of cynicism and falsity. And here there were people who had given their time, money and nerves to revive an old idea of Hristo Botev, to develop it and turn it into a “Historical Collection of Mathematics” that would help Bulgarian children, as abroad, and in our country, to get acquainted with mathematics and native history at the same time.

Let’s not lie to ourselves – mathematical knowledge is the basis and cornerstone of modernity and the eventual competitiveness of future generations of Bulgarians in professional terms, as well as of our country in general. Bulgaria has been called the “Silicon Valley of the Eastern Bloc” for a reason – we all know about our achievements in electronics. And we all see that even in the modern era, the information technology sector is developing in our country, thanks to which thousands of young and qualified Bulgarians stay in the homeland, instead of being sucked to the West (or the East). But we often neglect the other knowledge – that which builds us as Bulgarians, as citizens and people with a Bulgarian identity. And the essence of this identity is precisely our centuries-old history.

Attempts to erase entire episodes from Bulgarian history, to rewrite and replace it, are not accidental. Because Bulgaria’s detractors and those who would like to use it for their geopolitical and other interests realize that the historical memory of a nation is what brings it together and turns it into a community with collective interests. The widespread de-Bulgarianization of the Bulgarians can only be answered with a new revival of Bulgarianness and a struggle for a new Bulgarian enlightenment….

By the way, although I was surprised that such a patriotic initiative as the Historical Collection of Mathematics came from distant London, I still have to make a historical assessment. It turns out that too often in our centuries-old history, Bulgaria is reborn from abroad….. After all, BRCC was based in Romania. The political-diplomatic initiatives of Sophronius Vrachanski were also from Bucharest. Often the biggest initiatives, donations and causes of our Revival in the 19th century came from the Bulgarian communities in Odessa and Constantinople.

Last but not least, if we go even further back in history, the Second Bulgarian State was revived to a large extent, thanks to the use of the Trans-Danubian, Cuman lands, as a base for the first Asenevians. Later, when under Tsar Boril Bulgaria was in a foreign political (and probably domestic political) crisis, losing on every front, its revival came through the return of Ivan Asen II from the Russian lands.

We can list many such examples, but the bottom line is important – probably due to certain psycho-mental and socio-cultural circumstances, we Bulgarians in Bulgaria often take our homeland for granted, while Bulgarian communities abroad, cut off from their environment and surrounded by foreign cultures (and often attempts at assimilation), strengthen Bulgarian at home. In any case, where hope seemed almost lost, Bulgarians abroad, specifically the “Zavet” association, managed to bring it back.

They showed that something valuable and useful can be done without the Bulgarian state, without European funds, without state institutions, corporate sponsors and so on. Simply from a group of Bulgarians, each with a different socio-economic, family situation and place of residence, but all united by one common cause – to preserve and revive the Bulgarian cultural-historical identity, self-awareness and pride. And at a time when powerful forces have united against Bulgaria and our people, trying to rewrite our civilizational code in order to use us in their dirty political and geopolitical games!

Similar initiatives also show the old truth – “Deeds are needed, not words”!