On the day of Unification, Petar Stoyanov - President of the Republic of Bulgaria in the period 1997-2002. spoke exclusively on the air of "Sabûvû se" to Desislava Banova-Plevnelieva about the important consequences of the Unification, what Bulgaria's policy towards Russia should be today, what membership in NATO and the EU brings us and what is the greatest miracle in his life.
"I consider the Unification and the subsequent victory in the Serbo-Bulgarian War to be the greatest dates in modern Bulgarian history. Over the past year, we have been paying enough attention to the Unification, we celebrate it, but it seems to me that our manifestations are rather external", the president commented.
According to him, we do not pay such attention to the extremely important consequences of the Unification. "It increases the area of Bulgaria from 63 thousand sq. km to 96 thousand sq. km".
"After the Unification, Bulgaria entered 5 wars. As a result of these hundreds of thousands of victims and crippled Bulgarians, we are increasing our area by another 15 thousand square kilometers. That is, the Unification, without firing a single gun and without giving a single victim, makes Bulgaria increase its territory by one third, Stoyanov explained.
"This is very important from an economic, business point of view and even in relation to the army. After the Unification, Bulgaria becomes the most significant factor on the Balkan Peninsula," he said. In his words, for the first time we are in the focus of public attention in Europe as a subject of history, not as an object. "On the eve of the First World War, even Churchill said that Bulgaria's accession to the Anglo-French bloc was more important than that of Serbia and Greece taken together", says President Stoyanov. According to him, another important consequence after the Unification is the new self-confidence of the Bulgarians. "Until then, we are still waiting for someone to free us. The paradigm is how Russian blood and Russian sweat will free our fallen race from misery. For the first time, we are telling ourselves that we can do it ourselves". "We made the Unification ourselves, we mobilized ourselves in the Serbo-Bulgarian War and won, which is an unprecedented miracle", Stoyanov believes.