My Bulgarian land. The land of Botev – ancient, long-suffering and ... cherished.

But beyond the Great river is the Foreign country – chilly, dismal and wicked. The fetters and the flight. In the small homeland somewhere among the foreign land, in the coldest month of the year, in that beastly cold day, the fortune gathers two Bulgarians together – Botev and Levski. And that revolutionary Bulgarian prayer is spread everywhere:

Help me to the end to get

so when the slave rises

among the other fighters

to meet my own death.

The land of Botev. The slavish essence of the land takes care of the One infinite creature of itself. Because the one, whose spirit is a priori free and disobedient, cannot stand violence and despotism.

And Botev’s prayer!

Because every son of this land chooses his God. There are different Gods. The God of obedience, the God of ignorance, the God of cowardice. Botev is a patriot. The love towards the homeland is deeply implanted in his heart – infinite, dedicated love. And out of it the prayer is born. The sounds of the speech and the signs of the rebellion – the sword – they will wake the nation up, they will remind it that there is another way of living. And that is when you choose your own direction, when you choose your own way – towards good or towards evil.

We also have our Foreign country today – Greece, Cyprus, Spain, the USA. In that ancient Homer’s land our mothers are oranges- and olives-pickers. Exhausted, they are moving slowly among the endless ranges under the scorching beams of the sun. The roaming souls come back to their children during the nights. “Is still winter there?”

The roaming soul of Botev is in the unbearable Foreign country, too. Nowadays even the mother’s love and “the silent smile” (the smile of the beloved) are the best protection against rumours.

“Good-for-nothing he is” – that’s how a narrow-minded one would comment upon it. But pettiness is a part of our daily round.
Is the Non-existence equal to the hero and the no-one, to the vassal and the servile one? It’s the same gloomy situation today, “no love is left in the heart, no faith”. That’s just temporary. Bulgarians cannot be equalized to GSM-s you would call and wait to do something for the sake of yours. Even though we are named dependent, we are named servants. Our political elite functions as a dependent one?!

The inhabitants of Botev’s land are different because they live in the most beautiful piece of earth. That’s the land we dream for – the land, where we are roaming “homeless and friendless”. Because everyone has his unique chance. His birth is a chance even. But the chance to be an individuality you choose all by yourself. And that choice cannot be compared to a simple moment – it’s a long-standing travelling towards the Self of your own.

My Bulgarian dream is to realize myself as individuality here – in my native land, because the home should not be simply protected but inhabited also.

My precious creatures – my mother, my father, my brother – live in my own world. I’m in a hurry during the whole day to be able to come back to them. And I’ll be welcomed by my mother’s tender smile, by my father’s wise and soft look, by my brother’s jokes. I’m safe in my home.

But I’m confused and perplexed outside. The reality I’m travelling through every day is cruel and wicked, unfriendly and merciless. I am passed by the people’s troubled faces, by the shining cars. I myself bypass the shining offices, the unreal brilliance of those shop-windows. And sometimes I wish I could run away from this world. Just as those migratory birds do – to spend the winter somewhere there, in a hot country. I had so many possibilities to choose from – Spain, German, the USA even. Will I be able to feel the warmth there? Or just as Vazov says for the Outcasts: “They were among the people, but they were in a desert…”

Mercy for the emigrant?

I don’t want to be a citizen of the world, I’d want to be a citizen of my own country.

And what about the road towards Europe?

As far as I know from the geographic map, Bulgaria is a small piece of Europe. The wisest teacher – the History – confirms that.
Why should a road be established then? And why should the bridges on this road be bombarded and personified by death? I am puzzled: “ The bridges should connect, not separate”.

I live next to a military section. I see the soldiers, formed in a column under the national flag, I listen to the national anthem – every day. That male world is too quaint, I think. Maybe no winter of indifference can be found there. They, the soldiers, grow into men, because they have taken the oath of protecting and inhabiting their small homeland.

I am not going to run out of the winter of our native reality. I shall try to change it. How – I don’t know it yet, but I am sure it must be great. And everyone should be able to realize he is a part of a small land, the motherland to all of us. They should remember that the Bulgarian generation must expand to be able to survive.

Even in winter children were born… I don’t want to be lost somewhere in the immense world, I don’t want my mother’s tears to be looking for me. Because our home will be always waiting for us. And our Mother will be right there – at the door.