My Bulgaria (EN)

Little Bulgaria is so easily dismissed by its neighbours and by the European Union, who reluctantly admitted the country some five years ago.
Oh yes: corruption and maffia are present in 21st century Bulgaria. But is that the SOUL of the Bulgarian people?
No: the soul of Bulgaria as I have learnt to understand it, is the Renaissance of its language, its art and its economy at the end of the nineteenth century. Against the Osmanic oppression, with help of the army of the Russian Czar and under severe scrutiny of the European great powers of the moment. Austrians, English, Germans and French.
Like everywhere in the Balkans, borders are vague and undefined. Many bulgar-speaking people lived and live in northern Greece, Macedonia, Western Turkey, southern Romania and Serbia. Territory, language, nation - they do not coincide.

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