Hacker News Reader

Comment by nikolay | Hacker News Reader

Bulgaria is a disaster due to being on the crossroads of the East, West, Russia, and Turkey and the multitude of geopolitical and economic interests andalso on the way of the drug channels from the Middle East to Europe. The Balkan mentality, greatly twisted in the half millennium of Ottoman rule, does not help much either. Things are much worse than what the numbers show, unfortunately! The kleptocratic governments are covered up by the US and EU just so that we can limit the influence of Russia in Bulgaria. Anyway, the moral, mental, and health decline is much worse than the demographic one! From a great example in the Soviet Bloc, we turned into the worst example in the EU! Neither the West, nor Russia has interest in Bulgaria being a modern country, because poor slaves are pulled by the nose much better!

Edit: I'm Bulgarian, I live in California since 1999, but I spend 2-3 months every summer in Bulgaria and witness the constant decline every time.

View on HN

The Balkan mentality, greatly twisted in the half millennium of Ottoman rule, does not help much either.

I don't think this sort of ethnic essentialism is at all necessary to explain Bulgaria's current problems. It seems especially misplaced given Bulgarian Turks and muslims were subjected to ethnic cleansing quite recently, in the decade before the horrors in neighbouring Yugoslavia.

Petko Slaveykov's famous line 'не сме народ, а мърша' was written in 1875. The fact that it's becoming more literally true than he meant it is hardly the fault of the Ottoman Empire.

For those who don't speak Bulgarian (like me), google translate of "не сме народ, а мърша" is "we are not a people, but a carcass". Though I'm sure a native speaker would probably have a better translation.

It's good enough for government work! I didn't translate it because it can come off as far too inflammatory - it happens to be a line from a well-known poem by one of the founders of modern Bulgarian written literature.

That attitude is quite common in Eastern and central Europe. When I, as a Brit, lived in Hungary I often heard Hungarians apologising for the “Hungarian mentality” or “hungarian thinking” when something went wrong or appeared ill-conceived.

Absolutely. Here's a Bulgarian example

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Ganyo

But despite getting the works 500 years ago, it's more than a little silly to blame it on the Turks.

> it's more than a little silly to blame it on the Turks.

Not somebody who would be ready to unconditionally defend Bulgarians, but here I don't agree at all.

The "Turks" weren't there "500 years ago" they were there for more than 500 years and were there even 200 years ago, and during these centuries all the "non-Turks" lived in the constant very strong discrimination, across the huge empire that included a big part of Mediterranean:

https://cdn.britannica.com/89/4789-050-B6176F52/Expansion-Ot...

It's not an excuse but a fact. I know it's today fashionable to ignore centuries lasting discrimination of huge swaths of population, but it's wrong.

they were there for more than 500 years

I think that qualifies you for not a 'they'. That's an 'us'.

Yeah not sure of of it's historically unique but 100 years ago, the Ottoman, Austro Hungarian empires fell apart. If it weren't for the communists the Russian Empire would have. And yet it didn't last yet another 70 years. And the British Empire broke up over the mid twenties century.

That said the Ottoman Empire seems like a badly run affair for a long time.

The government has slowly sold off anything good in Bulgaria, water facilities, power plants etc. It's sad to see such a beautiful country in decline. I can say it is definitely better than it was in the 90s. After joining in EU it has gotten fairly pricey as well.

Sold off to whom?

to the олигарси?

My outside impression of EE common wisdom last century:

1980's: hmm, maybe the capitalists were right about the communists all along.

1990's: hmm, maybe the communists were right about the capitalists all along.

homo homini lupus

Edit: for the downvoters, what is incorrect? I did state it was an "outside impression," and therefore would appreciate factual correction from people who were there, so I can update my models.

As one can tell from the latin phrase, it's been a reasonable maximum entropy estimate for at least the last couple of thousand years (and probably even the last fifty thousand).

Someone who actually speaks bulgarian can probably easily find a much better source, I tried "списък с български олигарси" and got:

https://anonybulgaria.wordpress.com/2013/05/19/олигарси-в-бъ...

which probably has a few specific answers to ur-whale's original question, "to whom?"

Private interests, both inside the country and multinationals? The EU's promotion of privatisation is probably its biggest drawback. Here's hoping the UK's departure will reverse that trend.

As of early 2018 the EU was still mostly on the "privatise all the things" train though, sadly.

> ...being on the crossroads of the East, West, Russia, and Turkey...

Could being at a crossroads become an asset? What do you think of the projected Belt & Road route that passes through bulgaria between turkey and romania?

(my bet is that the northern route is much more likely to happen, but a newly constructed middle route would have the advantage of not necessarily needing the existing gauge swaps)

A key might be the distinction between controlling the traffic vs. being controlled (or simply ignored or overwhelmed) by it.

There are examples of both wealthy and extraordinarily corrupt transshippment points, though I'm not sure what factors distinguish these.

I grew up in a neighboring country, so I understand most of the things you're saying.

I'm just a little uncomfortable with the expression "moral decline". In the vast majority of cases when I've seen it used, it was just rhetoric. Maybe you can clarify?

The moral of knowing you're being robbed in daylight and not doing anything to resist it. Re-electing the same thieves, just because there are no alternatives and you have to choose between blatant thieves. And so on. The moral thing is a revolution and swat these insects out of existence!

Ottomans have been gone for 200 years now, haven’t they?

Full independence from the Ottoman Empire was achieved in 1908.

Looks like the fear and loathing is still there in Bulgaria.

There's a lot of lingering resentment in that whole general area, even after all these years.

Some of it is justified. Most of the satellite countries had to pay tribute (taxes) to the empire, money that could have been used instead for self-development. Compound this issue over centuries, and maybe you can understand why people are not happy about that part of history.

Less than a 100 (Ottoman Empire was dissolved in 1922), though Bulgaria went independent from them in 1908.

Yeah, true, but that terrible rule has left huge scars in the mentality.

the turks have their own party in Bulgaria and they shuttle people from all over the go and vote.

Since the last Russo-Turkish War that ended (1878) with de facto independence of Bulgaria from Ottoman empire, Russia continuously tried to turn Bulgaria into its vassal state and finally succeeded in 1944. These attempts include false patriotism that hails Russia as liberator. So the slave mentality continued uninterrupted.

Edit: saviour->liberator, added 1878

The Ottomans have been gone for less time than the US has been free of slavery. African Americans, as a group, are still struggling. I don't see why an entire nation should be recovered.

Comparing Bulgarians 200 years ago to african slaves in Usa is quite weird. Blaming Ottomans for the todays Bulgaria's all problems is beyond ridiculous, and maybe the sign of the real problem.

Would you prefer a comparison to Haiti, which gained independence 100 years before Bulgaria?

Did Bulgaria have huge indemnity to pay like Haiti?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com