site.btaUPDATED President Radev: Unity Is Our Inspiration

Speaking here on Saturday, Bulgaria's President Rumen Radev said: "Unity is our inspiration. We have succeeded when we are united, and only united will we endure." He was attending a ceremony marking the 140th anniversary of the Unification of the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia in Plovdiv. 

"I believe that united, we will overcome today's shortcomings and together we will build Bulgaria in the spirit of our ancestors – a free, democratic, just and prosperous Bulgaria," he added. "I believe that we will overcome the perpetual divisions that make us vulnerable from the outside. Today, these rifts are dangerous for the State," the President said. 

"We will cast off disbelief in our own strength, because we have paid dearly in the past for the humiliating notion that nothing depends on us and that our fate is decided elsewhere. We will emerge from the comfort of cowardice," Radev added.

"140 years separate us from that September when the Bulgarian people took their destiny into their own hands and erased the borders drawn by the Great Powers at the Congress of Berlin," Radev said. "Borders drawn against the will of our people. By the will of the Great Powers, over a million Bulgarians, who had only just tasted freedom after the Russian victory over the Ottoman Empire, were returned under the Sultan’s rule,” he added.

"The Unification activists corrected that historical injustice. A reborn Bulgaria showed all of Europe how our people could declare their sovereignty and defend their identity in a civilized manner, without violence and driven by their high ideals,” the head of State said.

He described the Unification as "a triumph of the people's will over the cynicism of the Great Powers," and "a victory of the bold over the conformists."

"140 years after the Unification, Bulgarians are once again complaining about derebeys [from Turkish - feudal lords], and the Great Powers are once again negotiating spheres of influence. These are critical times, and we must acknowledge that there are political brokers willing to sell off our future in exchange for foreign approval, offering up our sovereignty, our treasury, even our identity," Radev said.

Addressing the crowd before the Monument to the Unification, President Radev said: "Will we leave Bulgaria to the derebeys? No. We will not allow our destinies to be traded away in any form."

Saturday’s ceremony was attended by Parliament Chair Nataliya Kiselova, Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov, Vice President Iliana Iotova, Plovdiv Mayor Kostadin Dimitrov, Plovdiv regional governor, ministers, MPs, and municipal councillors, among others.