Dead among the Living

Most fans of thrillers have read The Day of the Jackal, a novel by Frederick Forsyth, in which a professional assassin nicknamed the “Jackal” is hired to kill the French president Charles de Gaulle. On one hand, the Jackal is making preparations to come close enough to the French president so as to put a hole in his head. In a parallel thread, Claude Lebel, a French detective, having got an inkling of the planned assassination, is using his intelligence and the state machinery at his disposal to stop the Jackal from succeeding. If this information was known in advance, why did Charles de Gaulle still attend the event at the affixed time?

Charles de Gaulle refused to alter his commitment, because 25 April is celebrated as the liberation day (WWII) in France. The French president always appears in public to felicitate the veterans. The itinerary of presidents and kings is usually known in advance – offering ample opportunity for professional assassins.

In 1925, when the military wing of the Bulgarian Communist Party decided to assassinate Boris III, the Bulgarian Tsar, the planners were more ingenious. The communist party, trying to overthrow the Tsar and the government, had resorted to insurgency. A few years earlier, Russia had succeeded in killing its own Tsar and bringing in a Marxist revolution. The Bulgarian communists wished to emulate Russia’s methods and success. The courts had banned the communist party. The party’s military wing had begun working underground. Communist International, founded by Lenin, supported its activities and provided Bulgarian communists with weapons and ammunition.

Since there was no particular event Tsar Boris III was expected to attend, the group of assassins decided to create such an event. The Sveta Nedelya church in central Sofia was already famous. Whenever a high-ranking govt or military officer died, a funeral service would be held here. Such funerals, as a matter of protocol, would be attended by the country’s top officials and the Tsar. The assassins, (in modern parlance the terrorists), decided to first assassinate a high-ranking official to bring about a funeral service in the church. Bombs would be placed in the church ceiling, to bring the roof down, killing the Tsar and other attendees.

A group of six terrorists began working on the plan. In January 1925, they bribed a church clerk and smuggled 25 kg of explosives into the church. The explosives were stored on the top of a column near the Southern entrance. The coffin was traditionally placed at the bottom of this column.  Bottles of sulphuric acid were added to the mix to release poisonous gas along with the explosion. A 15 meter long cord would be used, which by burning slowly would allow the terrorists to escape before the explosion.

Vladimir Nachev, the national director of police, was chosen as the sacrificial lamb to lure the Tsar into the church. However, Nachev enjoyed a high level of security and had to be dropped. They moved to plan B, Konstantin Georgiev.

Georgiev, 51 years old, was a major-general, also a reputed democratic politician. His death would definitely bring the Tsar along with the political and military elite to the church funeral. Konstantin Georgiev proved to be an easy target. On 14 April 1925, during his visit to the church with his granddaughter, a communist terrorist shot him dead. His funeral would be held within 48 hours in the Sveta Nedelya church.

The planning was perfect. It was the Easter week. The funeral would happen on 16 April which was the Holy Thursday. The terrorist group had issued forged invitations to the funeral so as to maximise the toll. Hundreds would turn up for the funeral, making the terrorist attack the biggest in Bulgaria’s history. The church assault would wipe out the Tsar and the cabinet, paving the way for the communists to take over.

The funeral procession would enter the church at 3 pm. The leader of the terrorist group, Nikola Petrov, was waiting in the dome since morning.

The funeral procession entered the church at 3 pm as announced. Peter Zadgorski, another terrorist was standing on the street outside the church. He gave Petrov the pre-agreed signal. Petrov set fire to the cord. In twenty minutes, the fire would reach the explosives. Twenty minutes were enough for both Petrov and Zadgorski to escape.

Crime of the century 

At 3.20 pm a deafening sound brought the roof down. The church’s beautiful dome was demolished. More than 200 people, including 12 generals, 15 colonels, 7 deputy colonels, 3 majors, 9 captains, 3 deputy captains, civilian men, women and children died. More than 500 people were injured; some suffocated by the poisonous gas.

For the terrorists, only two things went wrong.

The forged invitations sent by them had attracted several ordinary citizens to the funeral service. The crowds were unprecedented. In order to accommodate them, the coffin was moved away from the ill-fated column. Along with the coffin all members of parliament including the ministers had moved away. As the elite, they were expected to be next to the coffin. Zadgorski, standing on the road, and Petrov, hiding in the dome had no idea that the coffin was moved. As a result, not a single parliament member was harmed. And the Tsar?

Tsar Boris III was late. So late that his car was still on the road to the church when the explosion occurred. The key targets- the Tsar and the ministers- survived the biggest terrorist attack in Bulgarian history. This story is sometimes offered as justification by non-punctual Bulgarians. If you are not punctual, the delay may save your life.

Saving the Jews

Bulgaria joined hands with Germany in the Second World War. Tsar Boris III had a few meetings with Adolf Hitler. Bulgaria had about 50,000 Jews at that time. Nazis had created special workplaces for Jews. Hitler expected Boris III to send the Bulgarian Jews there. By 1942, the Bulgarian public, the Orthodox Church and the Tsar himself had developed a good understanding of what those special Jew workplaces meant. The Tsar used another Bulgarian characteristic: procrastination. The Bulgarian Jews were deployed for road construction. Whenever Nazis demanded their extradition, the Tsar complained about the shortage of labour. Jew workers were needed to repair and build roads. We will send them as soon as the roads are done.

On 14 August 1943, Boris III had his last meeting with Hitler. Hitler was furious that Bulgaria had refused to join war against USSR, and refused to deport Jews to the camps in Poland and Germany. Boris III once again maintained that the Jews were required for road maintenance in Bulgaria.

Two weeks later, on 28 August, at the age of 49, Tsar Boris III died of a heart attack. He was a healthy man. It is believed that he died of slow poisoning employed by Hitler. True or otherwise, the Tsar had managed to save 50000 Bulgarian Jews from perishing in Nazi camps.

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Living with the dead

In Blagoevgrad, our first stop in Bulgaria, I saw a long wall full of A4 sized B/W posters, neatly placed in transparent plastic sleeves, displaying a photo and some text below. Normally, such posters are about “WANTED” or “MISSING” people. That can’t be the case here, I thought. Looking closely, with my limited knowledge of the Bulgarian language, I understood these posters were death notices. Did this town recently have a terrorist attack ?

Two weeks later, I was in the coastal city of Varna, trying to find Galina, a Bulgarian classmate of mine from Moscow’s Pushkin institute. We had been good friends, but had lost contact since 1987. Based on her thirty year-old address, I managed to reach the apartment. To my shock, her front door displayed a death notice. From the name I guessed it was Galina’s father.

After 30 years, I find Galina’s apartment in Bulgaria, and land on the day when the family is in mourning. Galina’s ailing mother opens the door, and explains Galina lives close but not in this flat. I say I am sorry to learn about her father’s death. I am surprised there are no visitors, no relatives.

“Yes.” Says Galina’s mother. “My husband passed away 13 years ago.”

Necrolog

Bulgaria is full of those death notices- called Necrologs.

You post them on street walls, trees, electrical polls, churches, graveyards, on the door of your house, and any place which the dead person used to frequent.

You post them on death, then 40 days, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 18 months after the death and then every anniversary. These are the time slots for the poster. By the time your 3 month poster has become dated, it’s time to replace it with the 6 month poster.

This process of publicly remembering your close ones can go on until you forget about them, or you yourself become a poster. An author of a book published on the subject says she found a notice posted 60 years after the death of one ordinary Bulgarian citizen. She also found a newspaper necrolog for someone who had died 65 years ago.

In Bulgarian traditional culture, our world and the other world are connected. Since souls are immortal; our dead ancestors, relatives, friends are still with us, except in a different form. In other countries, only celebrities achieve some form of immortality. Princess Diana’s photos still appear in media regularly. In Bulgaria, even an ordinary citizen is immortal. If he is remembered 50-60 years after his death, his photos are displayed across the village or town he lived in. It’s as close to immortality as you can get.

The necrolog tradition makes Bulgaria a much bigger country than it is. The faces on the posters are of those living in memory. Their number expands the 7.1 million population figure considerably.

Ravi