site.btaBSP-United Left Urges End to "Dates of Division" ahead of Day of Gratitude and Homage to Communist Regime Victims

In a declaration on the occasion of the Day of Gratitude and Homage to the Victims of the Communist Regime, February 1, the BSP-United Left parliamentary group has urged an end to "dates of division" and called for "history to be left where it belongs - as a teacher, not as a political tool."

MP Galin Durev, who read the declaration from Parliament's rostrum on Friday, said that Bulgaria’s 20th-century history was marked by dramatic events, periods of upheaval, a struggle for survival, and profound social changes. ”Some dates do more than mark events. They carry trauma, pain, and long-lasting social tension," he added. “The question we face again today is not whether to remember, but how to remember and for what purpose - whether memory serves as a source of wisdom or as a weapon for new division,” the declaration read.

Durev noted that tragic events have long been used to sustain ”a sense of perpetual conflict, which drains memory of meaning.” The MP said remembrance should not be selective, nor used to claim moral superiority or to legitimize political positions. “It is a duty to the truth, to the victims, and to the future,” he added. ”Bulgaria does not need new dividing lines or a constant reopening of old wounds, but a sober view of history and respect for all victims. True respect for the past is not found in slogans or accusations, but in efforts to build a society in which the tragedies of the 20th century are impossible to occur,” he added. Durev said that there is no place in politics for exploiting the deaths of thousands of innocent Bulgarian citizens.

“The memory of the dead requires shared responsibility, silence, respect, and humility - not loud political rhetoric,” the declaration said.

“Let us turn history into a lesson, not a sentence. Today, more than ever, Bulgaria needs reconciliation based not on forgetting, but on awareness, on policies that look to the future without trampling on the memory of the dead,” the document added.