Home » World » How Peter Stoyanov persuaded Yeltsin to swallow Bulgaria’s application for NATO membership

How Peter Stoyanov persuaded Yeltsin to swallow Bulgaria’s application for NATO membership

The former president turns 70, a committee headed

with Stefan Tsanev organized a conversation about

return points 25 years ago

Stoyanov with the great poet Andrei Voznesensky and the legendary director of “Taganka” Yuri Lyubimov, 1998

What does a president do when he catches the eye of a storm when he enters the office? On January 22, 1997, Petar Stoyanov took over from Zhelyu Zhelev the responsibility of being the head of a state in which

Kirill Marichkov

Kirill Marichkov

prices are rising sharply

Georgi Gospodinov

Georgi Gospodinov

every day the lion perishes,

Stefka Kostadinova

Stefka Kostadinova

goods disappear

Petar Stoyanov presents flowers at the Vysotsky monument.

Petar Stoyanov presents flowers at the Vysotsky monument.

from shops

and the country itself wanders between the world’s two poles of influence, the West and Russia.

Then three events happened, which greatly changed the new history of Bulgaria and are responsible for being where we are now. A quarter of a century later, we have occasion to recall this turning point – on May 25, Peter Stoyanov turns 70 and the event, it seems, will be celebrated appropriately.

An initiative committee, led by Stefan Tsanev (see below), organized a small celebration that will not pass without a conference dedicated to the 25th anniversary of President Petar Stoyanov’s inauguration and the three events in 1997:

– The resolution of the political crisis on February 4, when Petar Stoyanov refused the BSP to form a new cabinet.

– The submission of the Bulgarian candidacy for NATO membership on February 17 at the insistence of the President.

– The signing on March 18 of an agreement between all political forces to conclude an agreement with the IMF and the introduction of a currency board in Bulgaria.

Kwasniewski calls the prime minister and says: We urgently need to send grain to Bulgaria.

Now the situation is different. We see what is happening in today’s world when NATO begins to expand to countries close to Russia. And it is worth remembering an already forgotten visit of Peter Stoyanov to Moscow.

August 1998 The President leaves for Moscow with his Russian counterpart Boris Yeltsin.

Even before taking office – since his election campaign – the Bulgarian head of state has been working for a clear course of Bulgaria towards the West – towards EU and NATO membership. One of the first things he did after taking office in January 1997 was to immediately ask his cabinet with Prime Minister Stefan Sofianski to prepare an application for our country’s NATO membership.

Stoyanov talks about the choice of civilization. In 1997 it was much more difficult than now to separate Bulgaria from the Russian sphere of influence. For generations of Bulgarians living under socialism in the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, when propaganda was brutal,

NATO sounds if not

hostile, then at least

deep

suspicious

And Russophile feelings are widespread.

Memories of Bulgaria as the most faithful satellite are still alive in the Kremlin. That is why the turn and the cooling of Sofia are considered a painful loss.

“What they knew about me in Russia was that I was the president who applied for Bulgaria’s membership in NATO, and this certainly already created an image of an enemy and Russophobe for me,” says Petar Stoyanov in Yordan Vassilev’s book. in front of my eyes”. “Actually, that’s not true at all.” I grew up with Russian literature, with the songs of Vysotsky and Okudzhava. My Russia was and remains the Russia of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Chekhov, Bunin and Joseph Brodsky, Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn and Varlam Shalamov. Before the visit, I thought for a long time how to convince not only the Russian leadership, but also the general Russian public that I am not an enemy of Russia.

The idea came to us together with Krikor Azaryan and Valya Radinska, who graduated from the Maxim Gorky Literary Institute and has incredible connections with the Russian intelligentsia. In fact, she took over the entire organization of the meeting, and before she met with Yeltsin,

invited to dinner at

the Bulgarian

embassy

the most prominent

representatives of

the Russian cultural elite

The poets Bela Ahmadulina, Andrei Voznesensky, the legendary Taganka director Yuri Lyubimov, the director Mark Zakharov, the actor Armen Dzhigarkhanyan and the extremely popular satirist Mikhail Zhvanetsky, one of the biggest stars of Russian cinema – Lyudmila Gurchenko, and many others came.

We talked about literature, about the productions of “Taganka” (I had already seen in Sofia “Hamlet” and “The Good Man from Sichuan” with Vysotsky in the lead role), I quoted Lermontov in Russian and an incredible atmosphere was created.

Of course, then there will be a glass of wine for everyone.

It seems to us now that we are overwhelmed by crises, but everything is relative. In 2022, we can easily get a shoulder from the whole EU and financial institutions. And what help did we need in the winter of 1997? Petar Stoyanov’s first visit abroad after Brussels was to Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

Before he leaves,

they tell him that

Bulgaria has grain

for bread for 3 days

In Warsaw, Petar Stoyanov told President Kwasniewski that there could be new riots, this time bread riots. And that Bulgaria does not have 120 million dollars to pay for grain imports, because it has a reputation as a bankrupt country before the world’s financial institutions.

On November 21, 1999, thanks to Petar Stoyanov, the current US President Bill Clinton came to Bulgaria for the first time, and this opened the way for our country in NATO. This is another story that Stoyanov told in “24 Hours”.

In front of the Russian televisions that came to film the event, our Russian guests – and this was really the color of the Russian cultural elite – more or less said the same thing: we have not felt so good for a long time, the Bulgarian president is a true admirer of our literature and culture . It is good that he came to Moscow and gathered us in one place.

Their speeches were widely publicized in Russia. And when I met with Yeltsin the next day, he did not fail to mention it, and the Russian press could no longer speak of me as a Russophobic president. The ice seems to have melted. ”

The then Bulgarian ambassador to Moscow, Vasily Takev, was quoted in the same book as saying that President Yeltsin’s first words to Peter Stoyanov were

“Well, Mr. President,

you took Russian

intelligentsia,

but we must also take the Kremlin.”

On August 28, 1998, even the Duma newspaper published the headline “Yeltsin and Stoyanov liked each other.”

The most pro-Western Bulgarian politician since the changes has managed to instill confidence in Russia or at least managed to prevent Russia from becoming our enemy. He does it with his frankness, his characteristic charm and his obvious sympathy for the Russians and the high level of knowledge of their culture and history, said Yordan Vassilev.

Peter Stoyanov’s visit to Russia must have really left a solid impression and the ice around his personality has melted, because six months later, on February 15, 1999, he was awarded the prestigious Themis Award in Moscow on behalf of the Union of Russian lawyers.

There, Stoyanov did not fail to recall once again the traditional historical and cultural ties between the two peoples, but emphasizing that Bulgaria’s civilizational choice – membership in NATO and the EU – is unequivocal and remains unchanged; Russia needs to get used to these realities.

———–

INITIATIVE COMMITTEE FOR 25 MAY 2022

The writers Ivan Tsanev, Vladimir Zarev, Boyan Biolchev, Georgi Gospodinov, Dimitar Bochev, Lyubomir Kanov, Rumen Leonidov, Zahari Karabashliev, Deyan Enev. Other prominent artists such as Teddy Moskov, Rusi Chanev, Iriney Konstantinov, Marin Yanev, Tsvetana Maneva, Yavor Milushev, Kamen Donev, Marian Valev, Georgi Mamalev, Ekaterina Evro, Toncho Tokmakchiev.

The great Bulgarian athletes Stefka Kostadinova and Hristo Stoichkov.

The great musicians Bogdana Karadocheva, Stefan Dimitrov, Stefan Diomov, Vasil Naidenov, Mihail Belchev, Kiril Marichkov, Valdi Totev, Alexander Petrov, Yordan Karadzhov, Veselin Todorov, Slavcho Nikolov, Vasko Krapkata, Margarita Hranika and Milena, Milena, Milena, Milena, Milena, Milena ”.

——–

Kiril Marichkov: A good man and a faithful friend

The best president. Very intelligent, extremely good man and faithful friend.

Georgi Gospodinov, writer:

He made the most important decisions

for the last 30 years

They are not many – the Bulgarian politicians who have passed through the mill of the local and have remained whole and with dignity, with scars, of course, but still whole. Their names from the last 30 years are counted on the fingers of one hand, not to mention on one hand.

Just a few words about the man and politics we celebrate today. (Jubilee and oil are not in my heart, but I suppose so.) I say man first, because this is always the first, always the basis. President Stoyanov is a decent man. This in my own hierarchy is more than an honorary title, perhaps the most important. A decent person will say good and sensitive, but also broad-minded, voluminous, open to the city and the world, to the small and the big. One that can stand in its place next to the Clinton family and to dignified Rhodope elders. And not to separate from each other.

As a politician, Petar Stoyanov made the most important decisions in the last 30 years. He sided with every choice made without hesitation, twisting and lowering. Think now, if it had to happen again, how many Bulgarian politicians would stand with the same conviction and clarity.

Thank you for your determination and happy holiday, Mr. President! Stay that person.

———-

Stefka Kostadinova: Accurate and strong in her judgments and statements

President Petar Stoyanov is one of the most significant and influential Bulgarians, with a lasting mark in our recent history. I have acquaintances, good acquaintances and friends, Petar Stoyanov is among the friends. He played a very important and decisive role in the difficult years of the transition, when the nation needed stability, faith and direction. We have known each other for a long time, but the memory of the Sydney Olympics, where I was Deputy Minister of Sport, is deeply etched in my mind. The President was then experiencing very emotionally every one of our successes at the Games, encouraging, inspiring faith and strength in Bulgarian athletes. Over the years, there has been no success or holiday on which he has not congratulated me. An incredible erudite, balanced and wise, very accurate and strong in his judgments and speech.

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