Prime Minister Rumen Radev's proposal to use one history textbook in modern Bulgarian schools has caused a real wave of contradictory opinions. The majority of authors who wrote on the Internet insist that it would be much more useful for society to research and present the historical process in a free form - without any mandatory restrictions. For the simple reason that individual citizens had a preference for one or another problem, event and historical figure, in their family past, etc.
This was commented on for "Trud" by Prof. Trendafil Mitev.
These claims of the writers are completely justified, but only as far as the possibility and necessity for Bulgarians - already in adulthood, to really have a rich variety of interpretations of important historical events. So that people as citizens can form their own lasting and sufficiently stable opinion on what is most closely related to the evolution of the democratic political process and the protection of enduring national values.
However, when the problem of history reading is reduced to the early age level - for students between 10 and 18 years old in Bulgarian schools, the truth is much different. And the reasons for this can be sought in several very significant directions. First, Bulgaria is the country in which, like nowhere else in the world, for centuries there has been a unique intersection of solid local ethnicities, religions and cultural traditions. Here, first of all, since the 15th century, Christian and Islamic civilizations have met and intersected. Parallel to them, the Orthodox and Catholic value systems coexisted nearby. Simultaneously with all this, Slavic, Greek and Ottoman ethnic traditions and realities intersect. And on top of all that, next to all of them, it has stood solidly, with its specifics and the large Roma ethnic community, that of the Jews, as well as the fruits of the aggressive Macedonianism propagated by “OMO-Ilinden“. Nowhere - indeed, in no other place in Europe does such an endless tangle of intersecting centuries, different civilizational traces exist, which have different value traditions and peculiarities in the upbringing and development of the human individual.
It is true that the Bulgarian Constitution has clearly defined the rights and obligations of every Bulgarian citizen in public life. But precisely because of this right, given by the basic law to the citizen as a representative of the sovereign in the state, no one can interfere in family life, family customs and traditions in which the younger generations grow up. And from there, certain differences inevitably emerge, which only a unified and well-thought-out educational system can eliminate in a civilized manner in order to stimulate the growth of Bulgarian citizens who are equally ready to defend their homeland - Bulgaria.
The second reason that necessitates the use of like-minded educational literature on history is related to the overly dramatic development of Bulgarian national history over the last century. When there are several - different - history textbooks, some author teams emphasize in their positive assessments the processes that followed in the country after June 9, 1923. Others, who stand on different ideological and value positions, praise what September 9, 1944 brought to the Bulgarians. As is logical to assume (and this is exactly what is happening so far), with the availability of alternative textbooks, some will praise the first changes and condemn the second.
And the others will act in exactly the opposite way - they will praise the second events and curse the first. However, both types of authorial groups here logically face the following extremely complex dilemmas: How will those who will praise the processes after June 9, 1923, and condemn September 9, 1944, explain to children that in the 1920s, for the first time under a Bulgarian government, Bulgarian citizens began to "disappear without a trace" on the streets? How will they also explain that the majority of them were beaten in the police, and then the bodies of some were even burned in the barracks' boiler room? To exclaim the famous author: “He slaughtered his people as no Turk has slaughtered them“!? How will the civilizational level of the June 9th government be justified on this basis, so that it will leave a lasting mark in the minds of young people in the future?
Or the other case - how will those praising September 9, 1944 explain the logic of the attack organized by the Military Organization of the Bulgarian Communist Party in the church "St. Nedelya" in 1925, which only led to the liquidation of 150 innocent citizens? Or the other dilemma - how come, on the basis of what civilization after the Second World War, the "People's Court" in Bulgaria alone would issue over 2,300 death sentences in 1946? As a large part of those liquidated then did not necessarily deserve the death penalty? These are dilemmas that exist and will continue to create real and insurmountable problems for the education and upbringing of young Bulgarian generations, if the alternative textbooks are preserved in our modern schools. Just as for several decades until today, Bulgarian history has been presented to children “alternatively”.
The third reason why it is good to introduce a consensually approved text in history textbooks is related to the peak manifestations of Bulgarian youth in our recent history until the wars. Would 7,000 young Bulgarians in the Volunteers have stopped the 35,000th army of Suleiman Pasha under Mount Shipka and thus predetermine Bulgarian liberation, if these young Bulgarians had been educated and brought up with the help of “differentiated textbooks” in terms of their content? Would their peers then have helped the army of a seven-year-old Bulgaria defeat the 70-year-old Serbian army in order to guarantee the Unification of the Principality of Bulgaria with Eastern Rumelia in 1885? What if these young people were also educated and brought up with diverse scientific information in alternative textbooks? Would the army of five million Bulgaria in 1912 have defeated the Sultan's troops during the Balkan War and debunked the Ottoman Empire as a great power if these young Bulgarians were also educated and brought up with the help of different, to some extent mutually exclusive textbooks?
It is beyond any doubt that the children of modern Bulgaria still have neither sufficient scientific information in their worldview, nor the ability to think and objectively evaluate given truths related to our national history. And this is precisely the part of our society that should receive a solid and sufficiently useful patriotic upbringing. That is why the solution is not in the alternative teaching and study of history by minors.
It is high time for the Bulgarian scientific community in the field of historical knowledge to form a sufficiently representative community of its own, which, based on a comprehensive and exhaustive scientific analysis, would clarify the main thing: which events, to what extent and in what informative way should be explained in the modern Bulgarian school? This is not an easy task in the sphere of spirituality. But which similar task and when in our national life has been easy to solve? It is a matter of patriotic duty and professional responsibility of the modern generations of historians of our nation to give sufficiently convincing and consensual answers to the discussion problems in Bulgarian history in the textbooks used by children in school.
And in our own creative process, let us explore everything in monographs, so as to provide our mature modern reader with a variety of reading material on topics of interest to him. For the elderly, this is necessary and useful. And in order to build solidarity-minded future citizens from children, the modern Bulgarian school must not produce aspiring politicians who are incapable of finding a common language in our national affairs.