History, Politics and Sociology
Amnesty International Bulgaria: Imprisonment of Ethnic Turks (UK, Amnesty o/p). Reports on the forced "assimilation" of Bulgaria's largest minority group, using documentary, eye-witness and hearsay evidence. Christ Anastasoff The Bulgarians (UK, Exposition Press o/p). Academic essays on diverse aspects of Bulgarian history. The diplomacy, religious schisms and Byzantine feuds of centuries are minutely dissected. J.D. Bell Peasants in Power (UK/US, Princeton UP o/p). Before, during and after World War I, the Agrarians were the largest radical opposition party in Bulgaria and the "Greens" of southeastern Europe. Bell discourses on the brief period of Agrarian government and their charismatic leader, Stamboliiski, in a scholarly but uninspiring manner. Stephen Constant Foxy Ferdinand (UK, Sidgwick & Jackson o/p; US, Franklin Watts o/p). Readable and impeccably researched biography of Bulgaria's unlamented tsar, who privately referred to his subjects as mes bufles - "my buffalos". Deals candidly with Ferdinand's bisexuality - a subject that contemporary Bulgarian historians still shy away from. R.J. Crampton A Short History of Modern Bulgaria (UK/US, Cambridge University Press). Probably the definitive work on the subject: an informed, well-balanced and easy-to-read account widely available from bookshops and public libraries. Especially good on the intrigues of Bulgarian political life after the Liberation. Stanley Evans A Short History of Bulgaria (UK, Lawrence & Wishart o/p). Slightly turgid and inevitably dated, but a useful general history, including coverage of the periods before the collapse of the Second Kingdom and after unification. Isabel Fonseca Bury Me Standing (UK, Vintage; US, Knopf). Part travelogue, part social enquiry, presenting a sympathetic description of contemporary Gypsy life in Eastern Europe. The one chapter on Bulgaria concentrates on the town of Sliven, where Gypsies and ethnic Bulgarians are more integrated than anywhere else in the country. Misha Glenny The Balkans 1804-1999. Nationalism, War and the Great Powers . (UK/US, Penguin). Wide-ranging history written in breezy accessible style - but backed up with prodigious research. The narrative zooms around from Croatia to Constantinople and all points between, but just about everything you ever wanted to know about the region is in here somewhere. Stephane Groueff Crown of Thorns (UK, Madison o/p; US, University Press of America o/p). Boris III, Ferdinand's successor, is the subject of this slavish work - complete with endorsements by William Buckley and other right-wing fanatics - written by an emigre whose dad served Boris. Richard C. Hall The Balkan Wars (UK, Routledge). Good academic history of the cycle of wars which engulfed the region in 1912-13, providing the curtain-raiser for World War I. Packed with insights into the national conflicts which still plague the region to this day. R.F. Hoddinott The Thracians (UK/US, Thames & Hudson o/p). Thorough introduction to the Bulgarians' ancient antecedents, although descriptions of archeological evidence are sometimes a bit too technical for the lay reader. Elizabeth Kwasnik Bulgaria: Tradition and Beauty (UK, Liverpool Museum o/p). The catalogue to an exhibition that toured several provincial museums in the UK, with essays on carpet-weaving, traditional costumes and rural celebrations, accompanied by excellent colour pictures. D.M. Lang The Bulgarians (UK, Thames & Hudson o/p). Traces the Bulgars from Central Asia until the Ottoman conquest, neatly complementing Macdermott's history. Illustrated. Mercia Macdermott A History of Bulgaria, 1393-1885 (UK, Allen & Unwin o/p); The Apostle of Freedom (UK, Allen & Unwin o/p); Freedom or Death (UK, Journeyman Press o/p); For Freedom and Perfection (UK, Journeyman Press, o/p). Written sympathetically and with obvious enjoyment - all in all, probably the best histories of Bulgaria in the English language. The last three are biographies of famous nineteenth-century revolutionaries - Vasil Levski, Gotse Delchev and Yane Sandanski - which, despite being tinged with hero worship, are impeccably researched and emin ently readable. Georgi Markov The Truth that Killed (UK, Weidenfeld o/p). Disillusioned by constraints on his literary career in Sofia, Georgi Markov defected for a new life in England, where he began broadcasting for the BBC World Service. Both autobiographical and a sermon a la Solzhenitsyn, this book apparently so enraged the Politburo that they ordered his murder. Jabbed with a poison-tipped umbrella on Waterloo Bridge, Markov died of a rare fever a few days later. Mark Mazower The Balkans (UK, Phoenix). A thematic, rather than narrative, history of the Balkans which renders the broad sweep of history in easily digestable style. A good place to start before moving on to something more detailed. Dimitri Obolensky The Byzantine Commonwealth (UK, Phoenix; US, Nicolson). Classic work on the spread of Christianity and Byzantine culture in the Balkans during the Middle Ages; it's particularly good on the medieval Bulgarian church. Duncan M. Perry Stefan Stambolov and the Emergence of Modern Bulgaria (US, Duke University). A political rather than personal biography of the most talented and charismatic of Bulgaria's post-Liberation politicians, which makes a good introduction to the period as a whole. The same author's The Politics of Terror: the Macedonian Revolutionary Movements 1893-1903 (US, Duke University), is a thorough and readable account of the genesis of IMRO. Hugh Poulton The Balkans: Minorities and States in Conflict (UK, Minority Rights Group o/p; US, Paul & Co o/p). Exhaustively researched compendium on the national minorities of Bulgaria and its neighbours. Steven Runciman History of the First Bulgarian Empire (UK, Bell o/p). Though long out of print, this is the classic account of the rise and fall of Bulgaria's first medieval kingdom, by a respected scholar of Byzantine and Balkan history. Claire Stirling Time of the Assassins (UK, Angus Robertson o/p; US, Henry Holt). Readers' Digest bankrolled Stirling's hunt for the "Bulgarian Connection" whereby Mehmet Ali Agca's attempted murder of the pope in 1981 was stage-managed by the KGB, and her tendentious account is couched in the Digest's breathless right-wing house style. Similar assertions are made in The Plot to Kill the Pope by Paul Henze (US, Simon & Schuster o/p). In an earlier book, The Terror Network (UK, Holt & Reinhardt; US, Weidenfeld & Nicholson o/p), Stirling accused Bulgaria of smuggling arms and narcotics into Turkey. E.P. Thompson Beyond the Frontier (UK, Merlin; US Stanford UP). Heartfelt account of the Allied mission to aid Bulgarian partisans in World War II, led by the author's brother Major Frank Thompson. Tzvetan Todorov The Fragility of Goodness (UK, Weidenfeld). Bulgaria's Jews were saved from the holocaust during World War II, largely as a result of popular pressure on Bulgaria's pro-German government. This book offers a thought-provoking account of this unique episode in European history, and asks what it is that encourages ordinary members of the public to embark on altruistic protests. Maria Todorova Imagining the Balkans (UK/US Oxford UP). Politico-cultural meditation which argues that the concept of the Balkans - as an unstable and backward area populated by crazy people - was largely the invention of Western travellers and writers who aimed at the promotion of exotic images rather than real understanding. A stimulating read.
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