BEGINNING - Part 01

BEGINNING

When I returned from work, around 6 o’clock in the afternoon on May 18, 1990, I found a small envelope without a return address under my front door containing a letter addressed to me. I opened the letter and what did I see? It was an invitation from the District Prosecutor in Blagoevgrad asking me to see him. I was requested to appear at the office of “his highness” on May 21, 1990 at 9:00 o’clock in the morning. So I said to myself: “Here we go again!” As I recall, only a day earlier there had been a report on Bulgarian television which stated that the Chief Prosecutor of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria had reviewed a number of documents pertaining to the Organization BMRO (Independent) “Ilinden”, submitted to him by the Committee for the Protection of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria. The report emphasized that the BMRO (Independent) “Ilinden” Organization was found to have actions directed against the security and territorial integrity of Bulgaria. As a result the BMRO (Independent) “Ilinden” Organization’s President, Georgi Solunki, was informed that he had one month to register the Organization as a political party or break it up, which ultimately meant the same thing. I am saying it meant the same thing because a newly passed law regarding political parties in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria, as described in the “State Gazette”, would not allow national minority political parties, such as ours, to be registered. The United Macedonian Organization (OMO) “Ilinden” was created on April 14, 1990 in the town Sandanski during a meeting attended by the leaders of four organizations: VMRO (independent) “Ilinden”, the Committee on the Rights of Macedonians in Pirin Macedonia, the Cultural Enlightenment Organization “Jane Sandanski” from the village Mikrevo and the Committee of the Repressed Macedonians in Pirin Macedonia. The main goal of the Organization (OMO) “Ilinden” was - to unite all Macedonian people under the sacred ideals of Gotse Delchev, Damian Gruev, Giorche Petrov, Yane Sandanski and others. In accordance with the Organization’s Constitution, every citizen of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria had the right to become a member of the Organization regardless of their political views, social and economic status or religious affiliation, provided the persons were honest and of good moral standing. Under its program, the Organization strove to spiritually unite the Macedonian people not only in Bulgaria but also outside wherever Macedonians lived in this world. The leadership of the Organization particularly liked to emphasize that this Organization was not in

violation of the territorial integrity of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria. In spite of what was said and written in Bulgarian newspapers, radio and television, calling us “traitors”, “separatists”, “servants of Skopje” and making other derogatory accusations in order to undermine our dignity and integrity, we were not any of those things. We simply wanted our national rights like any other human beings. There were people who, on national television, called us “political and criminal offenders”, “simple people”, etc. There were also those who had written about us: “Attention - separatists!” – In other words we became the victims of anyone who wanted to trample on us at any time! This kind of daily and sometimes hourly abuse over the airwaves and in print robbed many of our people of their courage and made them afraid. It was also publicly and openly announced that after the elections, active OMO “Ilinden” members would be hunted down, prosecuted and put in prison to suffer for decades. These were the conditions under which I received my invitation to go to see the District Attorney on May 21, 1990, as I am today writing about it in Skopje. Fortunately, a few days before that I received a telephone call from Miroslav Spirovski inviting me to attend the 1990 Valandovo Folk Festival and to participate in a meeting at the Greek border crossing in Gevgelia. In spite of the extremely strained critical situation I decided to go, so my wife and I headed towards the “Zlatarevo” border crossing. I did not take any of my important documents with me because I knew that the Bulgarian customs authorities would be very strict with me. But outside of a quick check of my luggage I was only detained at the border for forty minutes, long enough for the border security services to consult with the security organs in Petrich, Blagoevgrad and perhaps in Sofia. Finally they said that I could leave. I said goodbye to my wife by only raising my hand and off I went to Macedonia. Waiting for me at the Macedonian customs office were my friends from Skopje who were expecting me. At Gevgelia I met with the meeting organizers and had a cup of coffee with them. We left to go to dinner in the evening and slept in a place near Lake Doiran. I had never dreamed in my entire life, and I am now 52 years old, that I would ever have the opportunity to visit a wonderful place such as this, near this beautiful Macedonian lake where wealthy Greeks gambled their money and paid restaurant bills in the thousands of dollars. Many years ago, Kosta Mihalchev, head of the militia in Petrich had said to me: “Stoian, you only admire Macedonia from the map!” It was natural that after years of torture, from 1956 to this day, that I had lost all hope that some day I too, like other people, would have

the opportunity to enjoy Macedonia’s beautiful mother nature. Perhaps I would not have been in this situation had I not been born in Petrich where, during the fifties and sixties when I was a boy, we sang Macedonian revolutionary songs that we heard on Radio Skopje; banned by the Bulgarian authorities. I might not have matured into a Macedonian had my mother not told me the history of her father, Ivan Minkov, who spent five years in the “Edi Kule” prison in Solun because he was a Macedonian liberation fighter, fighting against Ottoman slavery. My grandfather Ivan was born in the village Matnitsa, on the southern slopes of Mount Belasitsa, which today is located in the Aegean part of Macedonia in Greece. He participated in the Macedonian National Liberation Struggle. Unfortunately he was caught, arrested for treason and sentenced by the Ottoman authorities to five years imprisonment, to be served in darkness. My great grandfather, my father’s grandfather, Georgi Jankulski was born in the Macedonian village Bogoroitsa (today known as Sestrino) located on Mount Ograzhden, in the Pirin part of Macedonia. When Georgi was a young man he was very strong and everyone in the village called him “Deli Georgi” (Strong Georgi). One weekend Deli Georgi and his father took the donkey and went into the woods to gather firewood. The same weekend Deli Georgi’s best friend, whose name no one remembers today, was to be married. When Deli Georgi returned to the village he heard no drums or music playing so he wondered what had happened to the wedding. He asked his mother why there was no music and she told him that the Roma (Gypsy) musicians were taken away to perform for a number of Turkish men in the village café. Upset, Deli Georgi armed himself with two concealed pistols in his sash and went to the café. There he asked the Roma musicians why they were not playing at the wedding, but they kept silent and kept “nodding” their head towards the Turkish men who by now were quite pleased with themselves, drunk on rakia (Macedonian alcoholic beverage). But as soon as the Turks figured out what was going on they told my great grandfather to: “Bak ishene Giaur!” (Mind your own business infidel!) But before they had a chance to finish their last words, Deli Georgi pulled out his pistols and in an instant shot them all. Then in a quiet and calm voice he instructed the Roma to go and play at the wedding. Hearing of this, Deli Georgi’s mother became very upset and began to cry. She instructed him to quickly leave this place. She said: “Son, there is no longer a place for you in this village, you must leave now

and quickly go as far away as you can before more Turks come and find you.” So, that day my great grandfather Deli Georgi left the village Bogoroitsa and went to the then small settlement known as Petrich where he soon took on a job as a goat-herder. This was around 1880. As a strong young man Deli Georgi was very attractive and was able to capture the heart and marry the lovely Stuitsa, a girl from his village, with whom he continued our “Bogoroditsa family tree” in today’s beautiful Petrich. Today there is a 40 to 50 acre wide locality called “Bogoroichini Nivi” located on the northern slopes of the legendary Mount Belasitsa named in honour of Deli Georgi’s unscheduled departure from the village Bogoroitsa. Georgi and Stuitsa had two sons and a daughter. The older son, Tomo, married my grandmother Elena and they had three sons, Ivan born in 1906, Nikola, my father, born in 1908 and Vasil born in 1910. They would continue Deli Georgi’s Macedonian family tree; a tree with long roots extending deep into the hills of Mount Ograzhden for many years: hills sown with the bones of thousands of Macedonian fighters; hills watered with the bitter, hurtful tears of many youth; hills that remembered the angry battles waged by Macedonian revolutionaries from the end of the 19th to the beginning of the twentieth century. Hills that 130 years after Deli Georgi’s birth still whisper about his struggle and his admirable descendants: admirable because in 1912 his son Tomo gave his life for Macedonia’s freedom. After my grandfather Tomo died, his wife Elena was nicknamed Elena Tomovichina and his children, God bless them, until they died were called Ivan Tomovichin, Vasil Tomovichin and Nikola Tomovichin in honour of their father Tomo. They were also admirable descendants because Tomcho, son of Vasil Tomovichin, lost his life. Vasil was killed by Bulgarian guards when he was only 24 years old. He was shot to death under the pretext that he was attempting to cross the border into Greece illegally. As a result of this Deli Georgi’s great-grandchildren, Nikola Tomovichin’s sons, Stoian and Ivan dedicated their entire lives to fight for the rights of Macedonians in Pirin Macedonia. Stoian, son of Nikola Tomovichin and Mitra Ivanova Nakova, was born on May 18, 1938 in Petrich, a small border town situated at the foot of Mount Belasitsa. Perhaps his parents chose this name for their son because the name “Stoian” had a hard character. They somehow must have known that he would have a hard life in the future so they chose to call him Stoian (virtuous, having great self-control), meaning standing firm before the storms of time, especially in volatile times

when life would have been so much easier if a person had called themselves Bulgarian rather than Macedonian. There are many advantages today for a Macedonian to call him or herself Bulgarian. These advantages include having a good paying job, a means to higher education, respect from the authorities, a trouble free life and so much more. But for a person who has the courage to declare themselves Macedonian, there is no end to their troubles! Declaring oneself Macedonian during the years when the totalitarian regime was in power in Bulgaria was especially difficult. To openly declare oneself Macedonian meant that one was willing to undertake physical and physiological abuse as well as many unthinkable risks. In the autumn of 1856 I was already a student in the eleventh grade in the I-th High School “Peio K. Javorov”. In early October we had a guest lecturer give a lecture in the study hall “Miladinov Brothers”. The lecturer’s name was Boris Vapcharov, Nikola Vapcharov’s brother. Nikola Vapcharov was a Macedonian poet. Boris Vapcharov, first Secretary of the District Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party in Blagoevgrad, had come to give a lecture on the Macedonian question. The topic of the lecture was “Macedonia - a geographical term.” The man read what he had to say from his written notes but what he said made me very angry. Up until this moment I had read very little about Macedonia and the Macedonian people. But from the environment in which I was growing up I knew that what this man was telling us was not right. I absolutely could not stomach what he was saying because he was speaking about me, who for my whole life was Macedonian. I decided to ask Vapcharov a couple of questions. I asked: 1. Where did the ancient Macedonians go after the Romans arrived in the Balkan Peninsula? 2. What did Gotse Delchev, Damian Gruev, Giorche Petrov, Yane Sandanski and all like-minded people fight for? Boris Vapcharov’s replies were very superficial and unconvincing. The first question he answered like this: “The Ancient Macedonians were Greeks”. As for the second question he said: “Gotse Delchev and his allies were Bulgarians and fought for the liberation of Macedonia in order to join it to Bulgaria.” Naturally I was not pleased with either of Vapcharov’s answers so I walked out of the lecture hall. I then immediately began to fashion an etching on a stamp with the word “Macedonia”. I worked for three nights with a knife, a needle and a number of other tools to create the stamp. I then placed blotting paper moistened with ink in a shoe box

and began to stamp the word “Macedonia” on thousands of pieces of paper. One word and a young conspirator kept the entire police force in the Blagoevgrad District busy and tense for the next two months. This went on until the dreaded Wednesday, November 26, 1956 when, at the entrance of our high school, my friend Toma and I were detained by two state security agents. I will tell you about this later. When I was in the ninth grade in high school I was introduced to a dark eyed girl, not very pretty, but who spoke so sweetly that it felt like honey flowed from her mouth. It was not anything in particular that she talked about but whatever it was, in me a 15-16 year-old boy, she awakened a sense of idealism for which I gave it my all. Unfortunately the girl found another friend and I was left disappointed. In 1954 I attended grade nine with a boy named Liupcho Rupanov. He lived in my neighbourhood and was very weak in math. I don’t know how he managed but Liupcho completed grade nine. I on the other hand, who had much higher marks and an “A” in most subjects, did not make it! Why? I suspected because I was Macedonian! This was my first time coming into collision with the “Bulgarian way” and from then on I began my long and hard route to Macedonia. My grade nine Bulgarian language class was taught by a lady teacher from Sofia who went by the last name Georgieva. I don’t know why but we, her students, among ourselves called her “the Goat”. She did not like me at all because I would not make the effort to speak literary Bulgarian. When I was asked a question I replied in the same language that I spoke at home. I refused to speak any differently. I preferred using Petrich words and expressions; the kind we used at home. Unfortunately that made her even madder and she did not hesitate to take her anger out on me. What made her especially angry was when I intentionally said, “Madam this is the Macedonian language that I am speaking!” But for the “Macedonian language” that I demonstrated in front of her, she failed me and I lost my entire year of school. I was very embittered by it, especially since I was one of the top students in my class and no one was better or faster in doing their school work than me. Because I always helped my classmate Liupcho with his work, my classmates began to tease me saying: “The student made it into to the next grade while the teacher failed and will have to repeat grade nine.” I was called “the teacher” because I helped Liupcho with his math. I lost a year and it caused me a lot of grief, especially the next year when I had to repeat grade nine. I went to school without any interest, despondent and with low morale.

I now realize that I was embittered for nothing for the one year I lost. What I lost afterwards for insisting on being a Macedonian and struggling for our Macedonian independence, was ten times worse, more significant and more frightening! I caught up with Liupcho in grade ten and we again began to go to and from school together. That was in 1955 when we were both in our teen years and nearly every evening took the opportunity to go for a walk. In those days it was fashionable for two or three people to walk together. We walked from the restaurant “Iavorite” (maples) which we then called “Parkot” (Park) to the Petrich town square. The place was busy and there were unbroken rows of people flowing uninterrupted in both directions. If you ever wanted to meet someone, chances were you would find them there walking. Both Liupcho and I became interested in two girls from the eighth grade in our high school. Their names were Velichka and Vaska. Both lived in our neighborhood so, for the next 3 to 4 months, we looked for ways to meet them and talk to them. The winter was very cold and we spent many cold days gathering courage until one day we finally managed to talk to them. It was May 1956 and nature was already decorated with colorful flowers. The hills of Petrich Mountain were loud with the chorus of bird’s songs, many wonderful melodies competing; one bird attempting to out sing another, trying to prove its love or wanting to be loved. Amidst the many bird’s songs stood the song of the nightingale with that sweet, stretched out lovely melody “piu-piu-pii-piu-piu-pii.” In spite of the great intellectual opportunities presented to us, no one as of yet has been able to solve the mystery of the bird’s song, to be able to translate it and describe what that chirping magic means. It is well known that birds have their own way of communicating, but what are they saying? The spring aroma of the blooming grasses, the blossoming flowers attracts thousands of bees that constantly fly from flower to flower, tirelessly guided by instinct that they need to collect nectar for their offspring, not realizing that after forty days of living in this crazy game they leave this world without ever returning. And in that wild frenzy of a living nature, in the middle of the cool and fresh Balkan air, I and “my” Velichka were slowly climbing up “Love lane” beside the hunter’s house. Finally after several months of fruitless chasing “our” girls, they finally came to the realization that Liupcho and I were serious boys worthy of their attention. I asked Velichka: “Tell me Velichka, why did you avoid us for so long and never once stop and talk to me?”

And she said: “Well, because I am still very young.” Indeed, she was only fourteen years old, a fragile, gentle little girl of medium build. But that did not matter to me because I wanted to have a friend for the future, someone I could enjoy being with and talking to. That is why I tried so many times to talk to her. “Velichka,” I said to her seriously, “did you not see that all winter I was trying to meet you? Every time I passed by your house I looked at your window in hopes of seeing you.” She lived only about 400 to 500 metres away from my house and the shortest route to my high school, which I took twice daily, was past her house on “Kiril and Metodi” Street. Every time I walked by her house, she stood at the window. So every day she met and intercepted my look until we finally met face to face that spring day. As I spoke she bowed her head and listened in silence while gently digging at the soft moist soil with her foot. We stood alone on “Love lane” near some bushes. Finally, encouraged by her silence, I said: “Velichka, I can’t sleep at night because I think about you all the time”. She looked at me with her shy eyes and quietly said: “I can’t sleep either.” When I heard those words the entire world began to spin around me. I heard what she said but at the same time I could not believe that it was true. I looked at her with a stunned look on my face for about 20 to 30 seconds until finally, instinctively, I grabbed her by the arms and gave her a long passionate kiss on her hot lips. That was one of the happiest moments in my life because it was the first kiss I had exchanged with a girl. A great love began that day which would have been the envy of many. We found a quiet place near “Love lane” and saw each other and enjoyed our mutual love every day. We went to the cinema together. When they took us to “labour day” activities, be it harvesting chestnuts in Belasitsa or picking cotton in the fields, regardless of the different classes we attended, Velichka and I were always together. I felt really happy because our love was mutual, full and lasting. She truly believed in my feelings and hoped to become mine one day. We both felt like crying out of love. We used to say to each other: “Only death can separate us.” But as people often say, “Too much good is not good!” So our love did not end well. About six months after our first meeting we were forcibly taken apart for an indefinite period of time, during which each of us lived on our own. It was a time when I fell in love with both Velichka and mother Macedonia! I had already made a stamp with the word “Macedonia” and had stamped thousands of pieces of paper and spread them all throughout the city Petrich and its surroundings.

I believed that there was reason for a man to live. I, along with my friend Toma, was devoted to our secret activities. It was the fall of 1956 and we both were students in the eleventh grade. Besides Toma, Ivanov and three other students from my class had joined our “organization”. They were Zhivko Donkiev and Vasil Kantardzhiev both from Petrich and Veselin Palushev from the village Kapotovo, who to this day has not stopped loving mother Macedonia. Naturally I had Velichka, my first love involved in my secret deeds, who at the time was expected to embroider the flag of our next Macedonian revolution. Such was our youthful vigour and audacity. We all had sworn in the name of something sacred, but we did not know what that was, but we strongly wanted it to be something. We thought that in only a few nights we could organize thousands of Macedonians and like a bolt of lightning; we would strike and unite the three parts of Macedonia - Vardar, Pirin and Aegean! We began to look for “like-minded” people in “Gotse Delchev” High School in order to build our Macedonian youth organization with people from the territory of Petrich, which was unheard of before and which, like my first love, I will never forget. Then, on November 26, 1956, for the first time I fell into the paws of the State Security Services. After detaining us at the entrance of “P.K. Iavarov” High School, the State Security agents brought us to the Ministry of Internal Affairs Regional Administration office in Petrich. The Chief of Administration there was Captain Shakin - an extremely wild person with a hideous look. Perhaps that’s why he chose such a career. For the many times I met with that man, I never became comfortable around him. But he never laid a finger on me! I have met other chiefs like him, with higher and lower ranks, and in their eyes I found some warmth and, once in a while, I would even notice a smile. But never in this person! When you were in his grasp you felt like a mouse circled by a snake ready to strike. Following his orders the guards took me into a room where a stout, tall agent was waiting for me. He asked me my name, where I came from and why they had brought me here. I replied that I knew nothing about the case. He then began to search my pockets and when he found a crumpled piece of paper with the word “Macedonia” stamped on it, he cheerfully asked: “Where did you get this?” I said, “I found it on the street!” He continued to search my pockets, including those inside my school sweater where he found several pieces of paper with the word “Macedonia” stamped on them. He looked at me with a victorious look

in his glossy eyes as a half-smile developed on his lips, a sign of satisfaction. “And whose are these?” he asked sternly. I took about 10 to 15 seconds to think about what to say, whether to lie or not? If I said they were not mine, then who put them in my pocket? My thoughts were moving at lightning speed looking for the best and most convincing answer to explain how the pieces of papers in his hand were not mine. Unfortunately the interrogator lost patience at my silence and once again yelled out: “Whose pieces of papers are these?!” “They are mine,” I said while looking at the floor. At that very moment I felt a terrible slap on my left cheek. I saw stars fly before my eyes in broad daylight but I kept my self-control. I made no sound or motion and stood there as if nothing had happened. Then suddenly I was awakened from my daze by his startlingly loud voice asking: “With whom did you make these things?” “I made them by myself,” I replied. “Where?” he asked. “At home,” I said. “Go!” he said in a loud, strong, commanding voice while he pushed me out through the door. When we went out in the yard there was a jeep with two agents in civilian clothes waiting, ready to go. We sat in the jeep and after driving about 5 to 6 minutes we arrived in front of my house. We went upstairs and entered the kitchen and to the startled amazement of my parents, I showed them the stamp, the inkpad and a few unmarked sheets of white paper which they immediately collected. They also looked through various places in the room hoping to find something more important, more significant, but when they didn’t they took me outside. My poor mother, she kept silent frozen with fear. She looked very sad and tears were rolling down her cheeks. We got back into the jeep and headed for an unknown destination. Half an hour later, after our departure from Petrich, the jeep stopped in front of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Regional Administration office in Blagoevgrad. As soon as we got off the jeep the agents surrendered me to the duty officer there who shoved me in a narrow room, searched me and then took me through a corridor in the direction of a door covered with brown leather. We stopped in front of the door. The duty officer knocked and waited for a reply. When he heard “yes” he opened the door and asked the young officer inside: “May we come in comrade lieutenant?” “Yes!” he said. After handing me over, the duty officer left the room. The interrogator ordered me to sit down, showing me the chair near the door where he wanted me to sit.

I sat down and for a minute or so we looked at each other in silence. Then the interrogator began to type something on the typewriter that was sitting on his desk. “What is your name?” he asked. “Stoian Nikolov Georgiev,” I said. “When and where were you born?” he asked. “I was born on March 18, 1938 in Petrich,” I replied. “Now tell me everything you did with the publishing of the ‘leaflets’: when, with whom and how long have you been publishing this crap?” he asked. “I did this on my own: the stamp, the printing and the distribution,” I replied. “You are lying!” snapped the lieutenant. “No, I am not!” I snapped right back, sharply. “Who do you think you are talking to young man?” he yelled at me and after taking two quick steps he stood right beside me. He then grabbed me by my chin with his right hand and squeezed tightly while yelling “Bastard! I will beat you to pulp right here; I will kill you in an instant.” I kept quiet but the lieutenant, unable to control his temper, began to smash my head against the wall. I still kept quiet and once he realized that he couldn’t make me talk by force he pushed a button on the side of his desk and about 5 to 6 seconds later the door opened and the duty officer walked in and said: “Yes comrade lieutenant?” “Take him to his cell!” ordered the interrogator. The duty officer took me through a maze of stairs that led into a dark basement. The basement was only lit by electric light. There were two doors at the end of the hall a couple of metres apart. About 150 cm from the floor, in the middle of each door was a small piece of sheet metal cut in the shape of a pear. Until that moment I had never seen anything like it so I had to wonder for a moment what possible purpose would a piece of sheet metal in the shape of a pear have on a door? I later discovered that it covered a “peephole” through which the guards kept watch on the prisoners. Higher up on top of each door was a piece of blue sheet metal with a corresponding white number painted on it. We stopped in front of door number 12. The duty officer opened the door, and made a hand gesture for me to go in. After I entered the cell he closed the door behind me and turned the heavy iron key twice. Inside the narrow cell there was a straw mattress on the floor covered with a thin, tattered blue army blanket. On top of the blanket was a pillow with a pull on pillow case. There was a half-filled iron water bucket in the corner of the cell, behind the door. It was there in case the prisoner had a bodily function emergency.

The cell was illuminated day and night by an electric lamp whose light passed through a dark net located on the inside of the window above the door. There was no natural light entering the cell. By order of the interrogator, once a day, sometimes twice, the duty officer took me to interrogation. This tormented me a lot but I promised myself that I would protect the other co-conspirator students at any cost. I was also pretty sure that my friend Toma could not be broken and he too would withhold information. I endured the torment for fifteen straight days and as the days I spent in my cell became harder so did the arrogance of my interrogator; he became intolerable. But on the sixteenth day, when at 6 o’clock in the morning the duty officer took me to the toilets upstairs, I noticed something that would change all that. On the wall of the washroom, on top of the sink, I noticed some writing scratched into the wall with a hard object that said: “Shan admit to the truth.” When they separated me from Toma on November 26, 1956 at the Ministry of Internal Affairs Regional Administration office in Petrich, I thought that they had released him. But I was wrong. The writing on the wall now convinced me that Toma was here, in one of these cells, also being interrogated. In high school they used to call me “Shan” so I knew that it was Toma who wrote on the wall. But why would he want me to admit to the whole truth about our caper? Was it because he had already admitted to the truth about the leaflets and was trying to spare me any further anguish? The interrogator must have told him that I was as stubborn as a donkey trying to cross a bridge, so he was in effect trying to help me. In other words he wanted me to tell them everything because they already knew everything. I think that’s what Toma was trying to tell me… tell the truth... they already know everything… I thought about the words written on the wall a lot. I thought about them until lunch time. What do I do? Keep silent and endure the torture, or take my friend’s advice and confess everything to the interrogator? At noon I decided to admit that others had participated in our conspiratorial caper. After lunch when the interrogator asked to see me, I told him everything. “Finally, you came to your senses!” said Nikola Mitev, the interrogator. “Why did you have to keep silent for so long? Or did you think we didn’t know what you did, with whom, when and where?” inquired the interrogator. I listened with my head bowed down and did not react to his questions. It appeared that he was satisfied with my late “confession”

so he pressed the alarm button on the side of his desk and the duty officer promptly entered the room. “Take him to his cell!” ordered the interrogator and about 50 to 60 seconds later I was back in my temporary home. Two days later the duty officer came back and took me out of my cell but instead of taking me to the first floor where we usually went, he took me further up the stairs to the second floor. Here all the doors were coated with a brown skin. The duty officer led me to one of these doors and knocked. A person inside said “yes” after which the duty officer opened the door. “We are here comrade colonel!” he said. The colonel said: “Yes!” and ordered the duty officer to leave the room. I greeted the colonel with a simple “Good morning”, after which I sat on the chair he pointed to. The room we were in was quite spacious; I would guess about 35 to 36 square metres. There were several windows on one of the walls and none on the others. The wall behind the Colonel was decorated with beautiful embroidery, on which hung a portrait of Todor Zhivkov. The wall opposite to the wall with the windows was covered with a large painting of a sea bay. Hiding in the distance of the bay was a small marine boat and in the foreground, on the coast, a very beautiful girl was painted, she was fishing. I did not dare turn around to see what was on the wall behind my back. Along its length, placed in the middle of the room side by side were two rectangular tables covered with the same kind of beautiful heavy covers. Arranged around the tables were a dozen chairs. I sat on one of those chairs after the Colonel silently pointed at it. The man behind the desk looked fit. From the salt and pepper look of his hair I would have guessed he was about 55 years old. “Well, young man?” said the Colonel after being busy for a minute or two looking in a folder which I assume was my dossier. “Don’t you think it’s a little early in your life to be dealing with such complex questions to which answers have not been found for a hundred years?” he asked. He kept asking and I kept silent. I did not know what to say. Perhaps he had the right to speak like this. He must have run into many people like me in his long career. He certainly must have read a lot of historical and legal documents to reach such conclusions. “Now,” said the Colonel, “given that you are young and the fact that this is your first offense dealing with this complicated Macedonian question, most likely because you are a product of a misguided family, we have decided not to send you to court. But if you continue to pursue

this matter, I am not sure what will happen, but know this that you will not get away with it! You can be sure you will end up in jail!” After telling me a few more stories from his experience, the Colonel pressed the button on the side of his desk and immediately we heard a knock on the door. “Come,” answered the Colonel and the same duty officer who brought me here about half an hour ago opened the door. “Take him!” ordered the Colonel. “I understand comrade Colonel!” replied the duty officer and we both walked out of the room. The last second before walking out of the colonel’s office I said: “Good bye!” Two hours after my visit with the Colonel the duty officer came back to my cell. “Out!” he ordered, “and take all of your personal belongings with you.” I took my only personal possession, my coat, which my father had brought me two days after my arrest. I was then taken out to the yard where my friend Toma was waiting for me. The moment we saw each other we began to laugh uncontrollably and neither one of us knew why we were laughing. We figured we laughed about nothing or perhaps we laughed at the joy of being free and together again? Perhaps! Yes, we were free but we were never alone. The duty officer told us to wait there. A few minutes later a policeman armed with a submachine gun arrived and the three of us left for the Blagoevgrad railway station. We did not have to wait very long for the train. By the time Toma had finished smoking his cigarette the train was there. We got on the first car in the first compartment which, as I later discovered, was only used to carry prisoners. After two hours of monotonous clinkering we had a ten minute rest period at “General Todorov” station where we switched from the normal cars to the narrow ones. From there we were taken to the train station in Petrich. And from the train station the three of us walked to the Stamcheva Building, belonging to the Petrich Ministry of Internal Affairs Regional Administration. There Toma and I were separated and sent to two different rooms. In the room where I was sent a not very tall, thin man, whom I did not recognize, was waiting for me. He had a long pale face and his head was covered with thinning brown hair. He looked like he was in his fifties. “Please, sit down,” said the stranger who, up to this point, I had not seen in this great city of ours. He said “please” with a sarcastic, thin smile at the corners of his mouth. I also noticed that he had an incredibly cynical look in his eyes. He had probably met hundreds if not thousands of people like me. He

must have felt good about himself in this position because from what I found out later, he was not particularly intelligent. He introduced himself as “Ivanov”. He said that the Party had been generous and had decided not to prosecute me. He said that what I had done during the past two months, under the laws of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria, would have been judged as an anti-national act, for which the Party could have imprisoned me for five years. So, for the generosity of the Party and to return the favour, he suggested that I meet with him on a regular basis. We agreed that we would meet every Wednesday at seven o’clock in the evening at a place to be determined during a previous meeting. That was on December 14, 1956. I parted company with “Comrade” Ivanov and I walked back to my house which I had left on November 26, 1956. As I walked in the street I felt a sudden weight lift off my shoulders. It was a strange feeling, the kind of feeling a man gets during the first hours after being discharged from a difficult situation. While I was detained I expected that I would be sent to jail but it seems that my “friends” at the Ministry of Internal Affairs had different plans for me. They figured it was more beneficial to them if this case got no attention. At least that’s what I assumed. I had no idea why they had released me, but the fact was that I was already free and could go home. When I got home there was great joy. Both my mother and father (May God bless their souls, they died nine years ago) and my sisters cried with joy. They cried and laughed as our neighbours gathered to congratulate me on my happy return. The next day I was back in high school with my classmates who also were very happy to see me back amongst them. It did not take too long before I was back in my old routine doing schoolwork, being with my friends etc. The meeting with my girlfriend Velichka was also wonderful. The first thing that I did after returning home was to let Velichka know that I was free. I ran into her friend Vaska and arranged to meet her at seven o’clock in the evening, the same day. Liupcho, Vaska and Velichka arrived at seven as expected at our designated place in front of the reading room. Her strong clamping embrace and intense hugs were signs of good times to come, the beginning of a renewed relationship after being apart for eighteen days. It was a great joy for me and for Velichka to be together again, to be left alone near the hunter’s house. We couldn’t get enough of each other’s kisses. When the idea that we were together sunk into our minds and that we were alone, just her and me, Velichka began to tell me how hard it was for her surviving the eighteen days of separation. She said

that at that time it was fashionable for Radio Skopje to play the song “Bolen mi lezhi mlad Stoian” (my young Stoian is resting sick) and that she cried for me during the entire song. Now she was weeping with joy feeling on top of the world. I too was happy and full of joy that we were together again and recognized the strong love connection between us. Along with the great joy of being at home and with my girlfriend came the burden that every Wednesday I had to meet “Comrade” Ivanov, which upset me a lot and left me restless day and night. Despite my lack of desire, I met with the “secret agent” on a regular basis, as per our agreement, something that I never told anyone; not my parents, not Toma and not even my girlfriend Velichka. For this I suffered alone because I alone had thoughtlessly accepted those terms. It is hard to function, to live a happy life when something bothers you deeply and you can’t share it with anyone. I could not sleep night after night thinking about my life, about what I had done and the situation I was now in. I asked myself: “Stoian, how could you, a person dedicated to helping your people, fighting for justice for all the Macedonian people, fighting for your Macedonian brothers and sisters, end up helping our enemies?” Now our enemies expected me to help them, to work against my own people. They advised me to infiltrate various environments, provoke my own people to talk about Macedonia and Macedonians rights so that they could be arrested by the Security Service. In other words they wanted me to spy on my own people and report, to the smallest detail, their activities to the Bulgarian police so that they could be persecuted the same way I was. I met with Ivanov on a regular basis but I never had anything concrete to tell him. This went on for over two months before he started questioning my loyalty. To prove my loyalty, Ivanov asked me to spy on a young lady. Her name was Lile Turnova. He wanted me to get close to her and find out if she was getting letters from her uncle Dan, who had illegally fled to the Federal Republic of Germany. Fifteen days had passed and even though he had given me direct orders to do this, I did nothing. I did not want to meet with this young lady, so I kept delaying it and making excuses. I kept thinking to myself, what if she is a State Security agent? If she is, and I knew that for sure, I would be more than happy to meet with her. But what if the girl was clean and had nothing to do with the accusations leveled against her, then I would have to betray her, deliver her into the soiled hands of my enemies. Could I do that? Forsake everything I believed in? I did not want to play their game. I was respected for my beliefs and for what I did. After I came back from prison people on the street