Category Archives: Travel

Eastern Europe needs more lawyers

2024 Trip to Southwest USA, Law

 

 

When I walked down this hill, an old man, about my age in others words slipped and fell while walking down this hill, but was not seriously hurt. It was a close call however and he was fortunate. Others in our group were not so fortunate.

 

Another day, another one of our people on the trip fell and got seriously hurt. Serbia, like most of the Balkan states was liberated after the fall of the Russian empire in 1989, but all of these states emerged as third world countries with weak economies.

 

Under communism of course, nothing was cheaper than human life. And now, in my opinion, tourists feel the effects of that dismissal. People here unlike in the west don’t notice dangers at their touristic sites. Such dangers are not important. There is little accommodation of people, like Christiane, who have mobility issues. They must fend for themselves. That may work with young and fit people. With older people who often have poor balance it does not work so well.  For example, people going up staircases at a fortress popular with tourists  had insufficient hand railings and steps were often uneven.  I know in one case I took one look up and stayed at the bottom. Call me chicken; or call me prudent.

 

In the US in the 1920s people began to appreciate the importance of some health and safety standards. One of the first places was food preparation. People demanded safe food and regulatory institutions were required to ensure the food was safe. For example, people were disgusted to learn how cavalier food production businesses were about mice in their food and understandably they revolted.

 

Places to which the public were invited had to be safe. Lawyers helped in this process. The classic case in fact was one from England where person got sick from a snail in her ginger beer. The case was Donoghue v Stevenson and it laid the foundation for the modern law of negligence and established the principles of the duty of care. People had a duty to be careful if it was reasonably foreseeable that their negligent actions might harm other.

 

In that case Mrs. Donoghue went to a cafe in Scotland with a friend, who ordered her a bottle of ginger beer. Inside the bottle was the decomposed remains of a snail, which u8nfortunately could not be seen until most of it was drunk. By then she suffered shock and severe gastroenteritis and sued the manufacturer, Mr Stevenson. She said a manufacturer of goods owed a duty to her as a consumer to take care that they contained no noxious elements. She alleged that he had neglected that duty, and was therefore liable for any damage. She had no contract with the manufacturer and in the law up to that time prevented her from suing without a contract.  The English court agreed with her and created a new ground of liability—the tort of negligence. A tort is a civil wrong. Not a criminal wrong.

 

After that successful law suit the law in the English speaking world was changed for ever. I know some people will be revolted at the thought that lawyers might do some good, but it’s true. Through the weapon of litigation, they forced businesses in that country, and in others like Canada, to produce safe food, entertainment, housing, cars, and everything that they produced. We are all better for that.

 

Activist like Ralph Nader also forced American businesses to stop ignoring safety. And road safety increased immeasurably. Governments jumped on the band wagon and produced regulations that industries were not keen on but were forced to accept. This was before the age of neo-liberalism that started in about 1980 and was juiced up under Donald Trump.  Donald Trump never met a regulation he was not prepared to strip.

 

Eastern Europe has not gone through this revolution. It is still in the era of neo-liberalism where all government regulation is considered and unbearable shackle no matter how many benefits they deliver.

 

By now, in the west most people agree that governments are expected to impose reasonable standards of safety on businesses, even when the businesses howl in opposition. That is not the yet case in eastern Europe. In the west, usually, if a business or its practices lead to harm to others, they will be held responsible, unless their practices were reasonable and the harm was not reasonably foreseeable. Added to that, if the business practices are such that they cause harm to others which is reasonably foreseeable, they will be held responsible for that damage. The test is what would the reasonable person do in the circumstances of the business person. Would the reasonable business person avoid the risk or take it? If the reasonable person in the same situation would not take the risk, and harm occurs, the business person will he held responsible. Such standards have been imposed by courts (lawyers in other words) through the law of torts (civil wrongs). They are not usually imposed by criminal laws, but civil laws. The business owners get sued for the harms caused by their negligence or that of their employees. They must compensate the victims for their losses incurred or harms suffered from their actions. No one (except ideologues) think businesses should be able to do whatever they want.

 

In eastern Europe the restrictions on businesses are still pretty loose. Therefore, people get hurt unnecessarily. And that is what we saw on this trip. Over and over again.

Christiane was lucky that our cruise director was diligent in warning her about unsafe conditions for someone with her mobility challenges. Others were not so lucky. Or perhaps they ignored the warnings.

Out of 147 passengers on our ship, at least 6 of us got seriously hurt in about 12 days.  That is too many, in my opinion.

Eastern Europe needs more lawyers!

The oldest City in Europe: Lepenski Vir, Serbia

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, Ancient Humans, art, History, religion

 

We had one more stop on this very interesting excursion in Serbia.  That was Lepenski Vir Serbia.

 

We visited one of the most important archaeological sites in Serbia and Europe called Lepenski Vir. It is the oldest planned settlement in Europe, located on the banks of the Danube in the Iron Gate gorge which we passed on our way there. This was the first site that was permanently inhabited in Europe.

 

The word “vir” means “whirlpool.” That refers to a nearby whirlpool so big that it could drag a big boat into it. This of course was very important for the people of the time who got most of their food fishing.

 

 

The Mesolithic Period, or Middle Stone Age, is an archaeological term describing specific cultures that fall between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic Periods. While the start and end dates of the Mesolithic Period are not the same in each region, it is generally accepted that it is dated approximately from 10,000 BCE to 8,000 BCE. [12,000 to 10,000 years ago]. That is pretty darn old.

 

The earlier Paleolithic was an age when humans obtained food only by hunting and gathering, but toward the Mesolithic period, they developed agriculture which contributed to the rise of permanent settlements like this one. This happened in different places around the world at about the same time. The later Neolithic period is distinguished by the domestication of plants and animals. Agriculture was becoming to the norm. Humans started to domestic dogs in the Mesolithic period.  During the Mesolithic period, humans developed cave paintings, engravings, and ceramics to reflect their daily lives. Some Mesolithic people still continued with intensive hunting, but others practiced the initial stages of domestication.

Some Mesolithic settlements were villages of huts, others walled cities. This site contained a sprinkling of huts.

Dragoslav Srejović was the first archaeologist to explore the site. The researchers noticed that the site was an example of an outstanding level of preservation and quality of artifacts.  Because the settlement here was permanent and planned architect Hristivoje Pavlović called it “the first city in Europe.”

 

When Srejović and his team started digging they had no idea how deep they should dig.  Each step down represented 1,000 years of human history. The deeper they dug the more they found. The stone figurines were clearly of human origin and clearly indicated human culture, but at first they had no idea how old. The Lepenski Vir site consists of one large settlement with about ten satellite villages.

 

Cultures are also distinguished by the tools used by the people. Tools used in the Mesolithic period were usually composite devices that they made with small chipped tools.

The very important site of Lepenski Vir was unearthed in the 1960s. This site is usually considered the most important Mesolithic site in south-east Europe.

 

 

There were clear signs of culture discovered at Lepenski Vir. Numerous piscine (fish) sculptures with human-like faces with eyes that looked like fish eyes.  Perhaps they were associating themselves with their gods.  As Northrop Frye, the brilliant Canadian literary critic pointed out, the main purpose of art and religion is to give the world a human shape.

 

Numerous fish sculptures have been found in the area, which is understandable since fish were clearly their main source of food. Even the sculptures they created showed creature with fish like eyes. Some have speculated that these may have been considered as gods. Was the first religion created here?  Perhaps they worshipped something like Mother Earth like the indigenous peoples of North America. Is this some confirmation for my theory that all religions are really the same religion in different forms?

 

What we saw here was the remains of the huts. This period saw the development of unique trapezoidal buildings and monumental sandstone sculptures. You can see the shapes in the photographs. These included huts for human families. These are now all housed inside a structure with massive window to make it feel like nature.

 

One of the interesting features of the structures was their trapezoidal shape that mimicked the rock face across the bay pictured here. Clearly the mirroring shape is not accidental but rather, giving the world a human shape.

It was also noted that the huts (homes) were all facing the river and a large rock outcropping across the water on the other side? The huts trapezoidal shape mimics the shape of the rock face on the other side of an inlet.  Perhaps the people also considered the river a life force. Or even that massive rock an example of the life force? And don’t say rocks are dead. To indigenous people around the world, rocks are considered alive.

 

It was suspected in 1966 and confirmed in 1967 that this was a site of exceptional value. It had unique architectural remains and stone sculptures that were particularly important. The researchers concluded during this time that this was an eponymous site a previously unknown Mesolithic people in the region of the Iron Gates Gorge.  The original assumption had been that this was a Neolithic settlement. At first they had discovered pottery that indicated a Neolithic settlement, but later came to realize that lower down there were the remains of a much older settlement that had been concealed by the materials above it.

 

There is another interesting aspect to this site. The site is a kind of natural arboretum that contains a number of woody species that amount to what has been called an outdoor school for learning about trees. The presence of species from the genus Pines (Pinus), Fir (Abies), Juniper (Juniperus), and Borage (Tsuga)  was also discovered here. As a result, based on what they called the first degree of protection under the Law of Nature protection, it is one of the most it is considered one of the most important nature reserves in Serbia.

 

Lepenski Vir is the only site in Europe where the study of the history of nature and human society are closely connected. It is considered an area of exceptional ecological value.

 

 

Burial methods are also interesting. They started burying bodies in the fetal position, as if returning to the womb of the mother. This would have a very interesting religious connotation.   Important people were buried underneath the homes.

 

There is also evidence that the people who lived here were healthier than other Europeans. They had healthy teeth and dined on meat and fish. Of all the skeletons only 2 teeth were missing. Dentists would not have got rich there. 300 skeletons were found here and more than half, 180, had no evidence of violent deaths. The average life span in Europe at the time was 35 years and here some were found estimated to have died at age 50 or even, in one case, 80 years old. There was no evidence of violent deaths either. Maybe they were a lot smarter than us. It seems they lived in peace for a couple of thousand years.  What could be more impressive than that?

 

The people were also very tall. Elsewhere in Europe at the time the average height was 1.49 metres and here 1.64 metres. Sedentary life must have been good! 4,500 years ago people migrated away from this area. The reason is not clear yet.

 

One tricky thing the archaeologists had to deal with was the fact that a hydro-electric damn was being established on the Danube River, which of course meant that the river would become a reservoir for the project and the water level would rise significantly, thus drowning the found site. As a result, it was necessary to move all everything from the original site to a new one higher up. And by the time they got to this point there was little time. They had to hurry, even though archaeologists, like lawyers, hate to rush. The new site was 29.5 metres higher than the original site. The relocation was completed in 1971. The final conservation work was completed in 2011.

This is the remains of fireplace inside the hut.

During the excavations 121 grave sites were found, which had to be respected and examined for scientific information.

 

There are also signs of human occupation dating back to the Copper Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age as well as Roman and Medieval periods. Some of those trapezoidal structures date back 8,000 years which some have said is one of the most interesting periods of human history. It was a time of substantial economic, cultural, sociological, and spiritual changes caused by contact with different populations. It is also the time during which humans changed from hunter-gatherers to stock-breeding and agricultural communities in Europe. In this Danube Gorges area, the transformations are characterized by some of the most original known cultural expressions ever accomplished in human history. And most of those were discovered right here in Lepenski Vir.

 

The more I thought about what we had all learned today the more in awe I was.  That modern humans had figured all this out  based on skimpy remains is truly astounding. As a species we have created a lot of harm, but we sure have learned a lot too.

Golubac Fortress, Serbia

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, civilization, Fortress, History, Serbia

 

After lunch on the boat, we travelled by bus to the Golubac Fortress, which was built on the south (Serbian) side of the Danube River. The fortress was built during the 14th century by the Medieval State of Serbia at the time when firearms advanced significantly and fortresses had to be changed. Like so much in the Balkans it had a tumultuous history.

 

Before it was built it was the site of a Roman settlement which was frequently fought over in the Middle Ages. In particular, the Ottoman Empire of the Turks frequently fought for control of the area with the Kingdom of Hungary. What were they fighting over?  The right to levy taxes on the Danube River traffic. It was passed between Turks, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Serbs, and Austrians until 1867 when it was turned over to the Serbs. Now, of course, it is the site of popular tourist attractions such as the fortress, but during its long history it successfully repelled 120 attacks.  That number tells a big story. European civilization was so often a place of wars. Wars over politics or religion or both. I remember years ago, when we visited New Zealand and one of the fellow guests at the place we stayed opined how lucky the locals were to have Europeans to bring civilization to the natives. Is that really civilization?

The name of the fortress and the modern town in its vicinity can be translated as the “Pigeon city” or the “Dove city” (golub, “pigeon”).  Some claim the name refers to the towers of the fortress that aim for the skies, like pigeons. Others say it was named after a beautiful girl Golubana who was fought over by a local Turkish pasha and a young Serbian man.

 

Fire arms were used from the first half of the 14th century but they had only a modest killing power so were used mainly to frighten the inexperienced. They were used to make a lot of noise in the hopes of eliciting panic and confusion in the ranks of the enemies. Of course, improvements made them more effective as well. Technological advances are always critical to military success in battle.

 

A big change came with advances to cannons in the 15th century. The architecture of fortresses had to change to make the walls more secure and add hole to use cannons against aggressors. Cannon towers were built as could be seen at the fortress here. Numerous cannonballs were found in the fortress. Fragments of barrels of cannons were also discovered.

Changes in firepower meant changes to the castle defences were required.

The western side of the castle was the most exposed to attack so a moat was built around the castle. But it never contained alligators. In the 15th century it had to be strengthened to be able to repeal modern, at the time, cannonballs. The towers were all walled for that purpose. Of course, they also had to make cannon holes in the walls so that cannonballs could be fired from inside the fortress upon the hapless invaders.

 

The position of the fortress made it very difficult to attack and allowed food to be brought in from the Danube River. It could really only be attacked from the west side and the river both of which exposed the attackers to weapons from inside the castle like bows and arrows, crossbows, catapults, or cannonballs.

 

Heavily armoured horsemen were the most powerful military force in the Middle Ages. A variety of other weapons were used to attack horsemen including maces, battle axes, swords hammers, clubs, battle scythes, and hooks. Because they were so heavy and bulky the mace could only be used by very powerful warriors. Lances and long spears were used for close combat. The infantry and cavalry used lances and long spears when attacking the horsemen. After breaking through the enemy’s line, the strategy was to toss the lances and spears and fight with swords.

The sword was the leading Medieval cold weapon and they kept getting “better” and more effective.  Better at killing in other words. Sort of like Modern nuclear weapons are even better than ancient cannonballs. In the late Middle Ages, the long and heavy swords were the weapon of choice and the swords could be double edged with extended handles that allowed them to be used with both hands to maximize the damage.  Maximizing the damage was always the goal. Armour was also important and kept having to be constantly improved to keep up with improvements to the swords. The Middle Ages had arms races just like modern armies.

That’s what civilization is all about.

 

Iron Gates Gorge Serbia

Fortress, Serbia, Travel

 

One morning in Serbia, after breakfast, we did not go on an excursion as we usually did. Instead, we went sight-seeing by our big riverboat. Sadly, the photographs I took that morning have disappeared out of my camera and off the hard drive to which I had loaded them and it appeared, off face of the earth. Vanished just like sanity in the Congress of the United States of America. And I was sad. In the afternoon, using the same memory card, camera, and computer everything was in order. Why was that? I had no idea.

The photo above was taken later that afternoon. The fortress is called Golubac Castle and it guards the Iron Gates Gorge. I will say more about it in the next post.

 

We were in the region of the Danube referred to as Iron Gates Gorge. It is really a series of gorges.  The biggest is Đerdap on the Serbian side of the Danube River. It was spectacular. The gorges form the boundary between Serbia to the south and Romania to the north.

 

It encompasses a route of 134 km (83 mi) but is really just the last barrier on the route. It has 2 hydro-electric dams and 2 power stations. On the Romanian side it constitutes Đerdap National Park and Iron Gates National Park on the Romanian side. A wider protected area was declared on the Serbian side and declared a UNESCO global geopark in 2020.

 

The hydro-electric dams have created a massive reservoir that led to the forced displacement of approximately 17,000 people from both Romania and Yugoslavia, including the inhabitants of the island of Ada Kaleh and at least five other villages in Romania. The affected populations had to relocate to new areas, and their former settlements were submerged by the rising water levels. This also caused massive anxiety among the people moved which we were told still affects them 5 decades later.

 

Kazan gorge is found at its narrowest point. The currents where the gorge narrows, such as in the Sip Channel were so strong that until 1973, ships had to be dragged upstream along the canal by locomotive power guided by locals. The Great Kazan (kazan meaning “cauldron” or “reservoir”) is the most famous and the most narrow gorge of the whole route: the river here narrows to 150 m and reaches a depth of up to 53 m (174 ft). This quite impressive considering that this year where we embarked on our cruise the water depth was a mere 1.5 metres, too shallow for most vessels.

 

Nearby is the Tabula Traiana or Trajan’s Plaque which is a Roman memorial plaque found on the Serbian side of the Iron Gates. The plaque was erected by Roman Emperor Trajan to commemorate the completion of his military road along the Danube. It was declared a Monument of Culture of Exceptional Importance in 1979 and is protected by the Republic of Serbia.

 

The plaque and the accompanying Roman road were constructed between AD 98 and 100. At its peak, the road was an engineering marvel that was partly carved into the cliff faces and supported by a wooden scaffold over the water. The monument was relocated in 1972 when the Iron Gate I Hydroelectric Power Station was built, raising the water level of the Danube by about 35 meters.

Uncovering the Buried Truth

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, Bulgaria, Modern History

 

Josh Arthurs in the Department of History at the University of Toronto worked together collaboratively with Lilia Topouzova on their project of bringing to light what happened in the concentration camps of Bulgaria during the years of Russian dominance.

 

Their project was to recreate the life and experience and memories of people who lived through the Bulgarian Gulag. After the collapse of communism in the late 80s and early 90s the records of the camp quickly disappeared.

 

Professor Josh Arthurs explained how that happened:

 

“It took them about several months to do so, and about 40 percent of the operational archive of the Ministry of the Interior was purged. What’s really amazing, though, is that together with colleagues, I found the order that set the purge. So, in fact, we have the kind of transcripts and the order by the Minister of the Interior then that set the purge in motion.

And here’s what we know. Very clearly, the Minister said, “Belene, the name of the camp, should vanish as a system, as a symbol of the repressive system. Belene, the main forced labor camp, should vanish as a symbol of the repressive system.”

So we know that information on the camps was a priority. We can never know for certain what documents were purged. It’s very hard to know that.

 

But we know that they wanted to get rid of evidence.”

 

 

Even after the communist regime collapsed the officials left behind, wanted to hide what happened there. They did not want the truth to come out. Arthurs said that he  and  Lilia Topouzova wanted to “unvanish, undisappear the records of the lives of people who suffered through the Gulag”

 

Topouzova was a graduate student at the time at the University of Toronto, working in England when she noticed a black and white photograph in the Robert Library there. It was a photograph of a labour camp guard.  She was able to read it because she was born in Bulgaria and of course learned the language. The first 11 years of her life had been spent there while she was a member of communist Lenin Youth. She was proud of her position until her world collapsed with the collapse of the communist regime. Years later when she saw that photograph, she decided she had to go back to Bulgaria to find out what happened to that guard.

 

When she got back to Bulgaria she went to the University of Sofia and was browsing through the book store. She did not find any obvious books about the camps so asked a clerk in the store where she might find them. Amazingly, the clerk asked her “What camps?” And this was in a university book store, where one think they knew.

 

Topouzova did not give up after that rebuff. She knew the clerk was wrong. Either lying or in denial or ignorant. There was no evidence even though everyone had been aware of the camps. There was no evidence of the camps in the Bulgarian museums. It was as if none of it had ever happened.

 

It took 20 years but Lilia Topouzova and her partners did not give up. They found the truth and to the extent the survivors have consented to its display, they have revealed the truth to the world. The evil is no longer hidden.

 

I am grateful for the work Lilia Topouzova, Julian Shehirian and Krasmira Butsova have done to prevent that truth from not being told.  I thank the CBC for telling this story. I hope that in time, despite efforts by people like Donald Trump to hide such truths, other brave and diligent people will appear to uncover such truths to the extent they are covered up.

 

In conclusion this brings me back to the current movement in the United States, though we feel reverberations of it here in Canada, that American children and even adults for that matter, should not be taught things that might make them feel uncomfortable about things their ancestors did in America. Such people think that avoiding discomfort for people today should have priority over uncovering the truth. Better to let the truth rot under the ground than cause any modern American to feel anything less than enthusiastic support for anything people in their country have done. Forget about injustice. Move on to sunny days. Be happy. And how different is it here in Canada?

 

So instead, people are encouraged to forget about truths. This is particularly true when people try to hide truths that reflect poorly on current society and its people in power.  Let the Trumpsters be happy at all costs.  Ignorant but happy. That is what Bulgaria did, even after the communist regime collapsed and that is what Americans are encouraged to do today. They think silence is golden. It’s not.

 

Evangelical Enemies of the state in Bulgaria

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, Concentration Camps, Evangelical Christianity, Rebellion and Resistance

 

There was another aspect of these concentration camps that interested me and was not discussed on the CBC radio show. They had some very peculiar enemies that included, of all people, Christian Evangelical Pastors. How could they possibly be dangerous?

 

The Belene labour camp located on an island in the Danube River in which we sailed, had about 2,323 inmates at the height of the repression in 1952.  Most of them were men, but about 75 were women. The prisoners included Bulgarian Turks who resisted the official policy of forcing the Turks to change their names and surnames to Bulgarian names. Go figure. The Bulgarians wanted the Turks to be assimilated, much like Canadian educational authorities wanted Indigenous boys and girls to be assimilated in Canada’s residential schools. Probably, just as in Canada, the authorities thought they were doing this for their own good.

 

From 1949 on, in Bulgaria, Evangelical Christian pastors were also targeted as “enemies of the State.” There was an infamous trial in which 13 such Pastors were tried at a Show Trial, convicted, and sent to the Belene concentration camp in the Danube River.

 

One of them, was Haralan Popov who survived the experience later and founded a mission called “Door of Hope International” to bring Bibles behind the Iron Curtain. He published his autobiography in a book called Tortured to Death for His Faith. I am not sure why he called it that, since he survived to write about it. Its Bulgarian title was The Bulgarian Golgotha. I guess he thought he was Christ-like.

 

But why would they attack pastors?  According to a Google AI search, it was “because their faith and activities were seen as “a challenge and alternative to the official state ideology of atheism and communist control.”  Again, according to Google AI, “In essence, any form of independent association, loyalty to an authority other than the state (God or foreign church leaders), or independent thought was perceived as an existential threat to the communist regime’s absolute control over all aspects of society.” Apparently, some of the pastors were even tortured to induce them to confess their sins against the state.

 

Authoritarians don’t like rebellion and invariably deal with it harshly.  Rebellion is always a threat to the regime. Even from pastors.

Little Siberia: The Bulgarian Gulag

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, Authoritarianism, Concentration Camps, History

 

This smoke stack was not, as far as I know, part of a concentration camp. but when I saw it I wondered about it.

On the CBC radio show Ideas, Nahlah Ayed also interviewed Krasmina Butseva, a visual artist, researcher and a senior lecturer at the University of the Arts, London.  She was another member of the team working on The Neighbours as a response to the Bulgarian Gulag. She explained what happened when the installation was first staged for the first time in Sofia, Bulgaria.  Most of the people who visited it spent the most time in the kitchen. That really felt like home to them.

The Bulgarian gulag functioned between 1945 and 1962, primarily. But it was never completely closed.

The Bulgarian gulag was modelled on the Soviet gulag. It’s the same kind of principle. People are sent to a forced labor camp without a trial, without a sentence. They were sent indefinitely in other words. Bulgaria became known after 1989, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, as “little Siberia.”

 

And the living conditions were excruciating. There was forced labor, there were hardships, there was disease, starvation. And of course, in some cases death. Not systemic murder as in Nazi Germany but many perished in the horrid conditions of the Bulgarian camps.

 

It’s a very painful experience. Bulgaria is a country of about 7 million people, 110,000 square kilometers. There were about 40 forced labor camp complexes in Bulgaria, so about 80 individual sites. I was shocked by the number.

Krasmina Butseva explained that forced labour occurred entirely without trials. Once Bulgaria was absorbed into the Soviet Block the country was quickly Stalinized and that meant extra-judicial internment and severe repression. Authoritarians always see courts and law as an unnecessary restraint. Usually, it meant no specific sentence. They were imprisoned at the pleasure of the regime until shadowy officials decided the prisoner could be released usually without explanation. Absolute power never has to explain.

The first question of course, is who were these people who were sent to the Gulags of Bulgaria? According to Butseva, the inmates were “enemies. Perceived enemies, alleged enemies. But there are many different categories.”  In most cases the victims were part of the left in Bulgaria. Political dissidents on the non-Communist left. You might have thought a communist regime would pick on the right, but that is not how it worked.  They imprisoned more on the left. That shows me what I always thought, the communist were more fascists than socialists.

Others victims included social democrats, anarchists, members of the agrarian party. Often Trotskyites, and in time other Communists who fell out favor with the party. The regime protected their own so long as they remained loyal to those in control of the party. Again, as we are learning in North American political leaders with an authoritarian bent value nothing more than loyalty. Next, some of the victims who were “invited to stay” included peasants who lived on the land and became “enemies” if they no longer supported those in control. Their defiance made them “enemies.” If they refused to give up their farms to the collective, they became enemies. Rebels could not be tolerated.

Non-conformists were also enemies. These were people who defied social norms and included men who let their hair grow long, listened to western music, liked dancing. Young girls often wore miniskirts and included those who wore hair styles the party elite did not favor. They were seen as political opponents. Then there were ethnic “enemies” like Muslims and Roma people.

Butseva explained that the last wave of Muslim and Roma were sent to the gulag between 1984 and 1987 when communist Bulgaria interned about 500 Muslim men to the camp for forced labour. They used many camps but the one used the most was called Belene Island located in the Danube River. Unfortunately, I never got to see it. The organizers did not think tourists would be interested in former concentration camps, or more likely, the current government did not want to talk about the camps.

One thing surprised me. This is what Lilia Topouzova said about it:

 

“When you visit the site of the former camp, this beautiful island, Belene Island, on the Danube between Bulgaria and Romania, I mean, it’s a striking place. It’s a beautiful, beautiful place. And the sound of it is beautiful as well.”

 

I love beautiful islands, but I this one I did not get to see, or even hear about.

The communist government of Bulgaria used camp internment to get rid of opponents when they were not able to use traditional judicial means because they could not charge them with ordinary crimes. For example, if they could not find sufficient evidence to charge them in the criminal system, they could intern them without the inconvenience of a trial. If people did nothing wrong, the regime could use that process to punish or control them anyway. That’s how autocracies work. And around the world it seems government are turning in that direction. Not good.

Some people are bored with history. I think its important to learn about things like concentration camps, even though they were unpleasant and we were on a holiday, but I hope if we learn more we won’t make such mistakes again.

Love of Country in Bulgaria, Canada, or the United States

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, Abuse of Power, Bulgaria, Concentration Camps, Death of Truth, History, Social Justice, Truth Seeking

It was at the University of Toronto that Lilia Topouzova and her colleagues Julian Shehirian and Krasmira Butsova, recreated spaces from a Bulgarian home and turned them into an immersive audio installation where Concentration camp survivors’ voices and their silences could live on. Their installation is called The Neighbors. It was the official Bulgarian entry to the 2024 Venice Biennale. That showed that Bulgaria was now dealing with this issue, after decades of silence. We heard small snippets from the audio in the CBC Ideas radio show. In the autumn of 2023 it had its North American debut in a small room on the campus of the University of Toronto.

The room is based on 20 years of research that Topouzova and her eventual interviews with survivors. The original project was done in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Julian Chakurian, was a partner in the project. She is a historian in training doing a PhD in the history of science at Princeton university and also is a multimedia artist with an interest in archives and expositions of what she called “wayward histories.” Too many stories have been lost. Gone for good.

This is what she said about her recordings of the survivors:

 “Based on the oral histories that I recorded, there were three categories of Camp Survivor narratives. There were the narratives of the people who had always told their story. There were very few of them, but these are the kind of practiced narrators. That was one way of remembering the Gulag. The second way of remembering the Gulag were people who still had memories of their experiences, but they had never told them before. Some people had never shared their story, because usually nobody asked them, but they remembered everything, and they usually had chronicles of their experiences, little notes that they had taken down.    And the third category, and that is the most painful category, is of those who couldn’t speak. There was no language. There were no words.”

 

This was a very disturbing description of the survivors in this last category.  One can only imagine the suffering that spawned their condition. As a result, this is what the 3 researchers did:

 

“I knew they had been sent to camps. I could see many of them had their files, but they couldn’t express. Based on these three categories that emerged from the oral histories from the scholarly research, we decided to recreate three different rooms to illustrate the different ways of remembering trauma.”

 

Again, I want to bring this into the modern political arena even though that might be uncomfortable to some privileged Canadians or Americans or their offspring. Imposed silence is definitely not golden.  Nor should the survivors be maliciously misrepresented as people who are maligning their country, as Donald Trump and the Trumpsters are doing in American with their American descendants of enslaved people, and indigenous people. Or women who experienced sexual assaults or violence or systemic racism in that country. Or Canada. Or members of the LGBTQ community,  who have suffered systemic injustice and discrimination for decades. It is a horrible defamation of their suffering by  a privileged sector of their society who call them haters of their country. And again, we have similar men in our country as well. Men who want to hide the truth. We even have women who want to hide the truth.

 

Try to bring the truth out of darkness into light is not an act of hate against one’s country. Trying to get your country to recognize what happened there and admit that is an act of love. That is not hate. If you want to hide the truth of what happened in your country from its people, or others,  that is an act of hate. If you love your country you would never do that.