Bulgaria Celebrates Independence Day
September 18th, 2008
Bulgaria will celebrate the 100th anniversary since its official declaration of independence from the Ottoman Empire with over 60 events spanning over a period of eight months.
“We must stage an impressive celebration of the 100th anniversary since the Declaration of Independence”, Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev said during the second sitting of National Committee organizing the events, which is chaired by him.
The PM pointed out the celebrations should emphasize on contemporary Bulgaria, and should reach out to the young people, because every society needs a sense of perspective and national goals.
In his view, the celebrations should not be limited only around their culmination in the city of Veliko Turnovo (old capital of Bulgaria) on September 22 but should be spread over time.
The special Internet site dedicated to the 100-year celebrations - www.nezavisimost.eu - has already been launched but is constantly updated. It includes information about the events on September 22, 1908, as well as the program of the events to celebrate the anniversary.
Bulgaria’s PM Stanishev criticized several ministries by saying their officials had approached the 100th Independence anniversary events as something commonplace and routine.
A number of the participants in the National Committee expressed their indignation that the program for the celebrations included many factual and spelling mistakes, as well as many foreignisms. As a result, the Committee decided that it had to be revised.
The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Lyubomir Kyuchukov announced that events in honor of the 100th Year since Bulgaria’s independence would take place in Belgium’s Parliament and the US Congress. Days of Bulgaria will also be held in Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, and other states.
After its national liberation from the Ottoman Turkish Empire on March 3, 1878, Bulgaria remains a tributary vassal state.
Thirty years later the Bulgarian Knyaz Ferdinand took advantage of a diplomatic crisis in which one of the great powers - Austria-Hungary - broke the Berlin Contract by annexing the Ottoman province Bosnia and Herzegovina after its 30-year mandate there expired.
Ferdinand declares Bulgaria’s independence from the Ottoman Empire on September 22, 1908, with a special manifesto in the medieval Bulgarian capital of Veliko Turnovo, assuming the medieval title of Bulgarian rulers - “tsar”, which is equivalent to emperor.
