If you thought that Sumerians and Egyptians invented the first alphabet, think again.

According to Dr Stephan Guide from the Institute of Transcendent Analysis in Long Beach, California, it was the Thracians who created the first written characters. And if you want some more history lessons, you should know that the land of the Thracians was none other than the land of modern Bulgaria. Having this in mind, writing in Bulgarian lands has a long history behind it – almost 25 centuries.

Skipping several centuries to make a long story short, we come to the 18th century, 1762 , when the  monk Paissii of Hilendar wrote the milestone work of the Bulgarian cultural renaissance – the famous Slav-Bulgarian History. This was the first Bulgarian book, after three centuries of Ottoman rule, which revived the glorious facts of Bulgaria’s history and urged for the resuscitation of national awareness.

Nearly a century later, in 1842, the first Bulgarian magazine appeared under the name Luyboslovie (Love for Words). It was published by Konstantin Fotinov in Izmir, present-day Turkey. The first Bulgarian newspaper was published two years later in Leipzig by Ivan Bogorov. It was called Balgarski orel (Bulgarian Eagle).      

The second half of the 19th century saw a real boost for the Bulgarian press. This was a result of Bulgarians’ efforts to win freedom and independence for their people and to overthrow Ottoman rule. Due to Ottoman oppression, the first Bulgarian newspapers appeared outside Bulgarian territory, mainly in Romania, then Wallachia, where Bulgarian immigrants were planning the future April 1876 uprising. Naturally, the Bulgarian community in Romania was involved in publishing newspapers of predominantly political content against the Ottoman oppressors. One of the leading journalists back then was Hristo Botev, Bulgaria’s poetry genius and one of the nation’s best-loved revolutionary heroes. Botev worked as editor for a few of the newspapers: Duma na bulgarskite imigranti (The word of Bulgarian immigrants), Budilnik (Alarm clock) and Zname (Banner), but  also published poems, political articles and essays. Another prominent publisher was  Luyben Karavelov, editor of the papers Svoboda (Freedom) and Nezavisimost (Independence) among others. The great strategist and thinker of the revolutionary movement in Bulgaria, Georgi Sava Rakovski, also published several newspapers, some of them in Serbia, among which was Balgarska dnevnitsa (Bulgarian diary). Not surprisingly, all of the newspapers were politically orientated and most of them were persecuted by the authorities in their country of publication because the authorities did not want trouble from the Ottoman empire.  And this is where the issue of freedom of speech and the press came in. The issue was on the agenda for Bulgarians even before they had their own state, which happened in 1878. The fact that the newspapers before Bulgaria’s liberation were used mainly for political purposes actually defined the development of the press in the new Bulgaria after 1878.

Right after the liberation, the political parties were formed, together with their own newspapers, often edited by the very same political leaders. There were no ethical rules. Full of unsophisticated language and sometimes even curses, the press only reflected the stage of development of the newly born Bulgaria. O tempora, o mores, one might say and would be right. It only showed that from their beginnings, Bulgarian newspapers were closely connected to politics, and decades had to pass before this would change.

Two such newspapers of the fledgling state were Tselokupna Balgaria ( United Bulgaria) and Nezavisimost (Independence), both edited by Petko Slaveikov, a passionate supporter of the Liberal Party.  Priaporets (Flag) newspaper was the official paper of the Democratic party.  The Conservative party had its own press – Balgarski glas (Bulgarian voice) and Otechestvo (Fatherland).    

The situation remained basically unchanged with the exception of several culture and literary newspapers and magazines, such as Misal magazine, in an area reserved for Bulgarian intellectuals in the first half of the 20th century. Politics dominated everything. The rise and fall of every paper can easily be seen with the rise and fall of the party behind it.

Then came the year 1944 and the presence of the Soviet Red Army in Bulgaria. With the Red Army came the communist regime in Bulgaria and with it the near 45 years of domination of the communist party’s official Rabotnichesko delo (Workers’ deed) newspaper. The paper was first published in 1927 and since then it has been the official paper of the Bulgarian Communist Party. After 1944, it became the biggest press edition in Bulgaria, with editions reaching at times 900 000 a day.  It was used by the communist party to proclaim socialist ideals to the people and to deal with political opponents and people who thought “wrong”. The criteria for what was wrong and right was Rabotnichesko delo. If it said something was right, then it must be right, unequivocally.

On the website of the I Lived Socialism project, www.spomeniteni.org,Nikola Nikolov writes: “I remember something very strong. It was 1989 and Bulgaria was still a communist country. I was a student at Karl Marx Economy Institute (today University for National and World Economy) and we had to study for this awful exam, “Political economy of socialism”. It was terrible and the professor was keen to tell us that this subject was the milestone of the economy. Then we started preparing for the exam and just ten days before the exam Todor Zhivkov, the former communist leader, published a four page article in Rabotnichesko delo saying that such science as  Political economy of socialism did not exist. The exam was cancelled and the professor stated teaching Market Economy.”      

At the end of 1989 democracy came to Bulgaria and together with it the democratic press, with a desire to prove that freedom of speech was something real. Among the first newspapers formed was 24 Chasa (24 hours). On April 18 this year it marked its 15th anniversary. Another influential newspaper was Daily Trud, which was founded long before communism, but after 1989  transformed itself from a trade union newspaper to a daily. The names of popular newspapers today include those of Dnevnik, Monitor, Standard, Sega, Novinar, Pari and others.

The 168 chassa (168 hours) and Kapital weeklies were also part of the new wave of papers after 1989 and a couple of the few which today may proudly say that they have more than ten years of history behind them. The sport press also found its place on the market with the papers Meridian match and 7 days sport.

Democracy brought freedom and some took advantage of that to start publishing papers of the so-called yellow press variety. Some may say that it does not reflect well on Bulgarians that such papers enjoy a large number of readers, but it is a fact which only shows that Bulgaria is a democratic country where you can publish almost anything you want. Legal sanctions for dealing with libellous publications  is another issue. 

Freedom of the press brought more opportunities for the minorities in the country to publish their own papers. The Roma paper DeFacto and several others papers in German, Russian and Turkish are proof of that. English-speakers in the country received the opportunity to read their news in English through The Sofia Independent, The Chronicle,  European Sofia News, the Sofia Western News Magazine, and in the times of communism, the Sofia News. In terms of weekly news, English speakers in the country welcomed  The Sofia Echo English-language newspaper, which on April 18 this year celebrated its ninth anniversary on the market.
With democracy came the market economy and free enterprise. Papers had appeared and disappeared leaving the question of freedom of speech open. The economic crises which came after 1989 tested the ability of the press to survive by itself. Some decided to stay close to the political parties such as the heir of Rabotnichesko delo, Duma newspaper, which is still related to the Bulgarian Socialist Party, heir to the Bulgarian Communist Party. Others took advantage of the principles of market economy and were acquired by powerful foreign investors such as 24 Chassa and Daily Trud. These two examples show that the question of freedom of speech is somewhere between politics and business and that the press is always somewhere in between.