SPEECHES AND STATEMENTS

Statement Made by the Head of State Rosen Plevneliev at the Commemoration Service in Memory of Zhelyu Zhelev, President of Bulgaria (1990-1997)rn

Esteemed Mrs. Zheleva,
Grieved relatives of Dr. Zhelev,
Your Holiness,
Esteemed Presidents,
Esteemed Mrs. Speaker of the National Assembly,
Esteemed Mr. Prime Minister,
Mrs. Vice-president,
Esteemed Presidents Stoyanov and Purvanov,
Your Excellencies,
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Compatriots,

Deeply saddened and paying homage to President Zhelyu Zhelev, we are saying farewell to him on his last journey to eternity. The esteemed philosopher, politician and democrat left us unexpectedly and modestly, just as he had lived his whole life. As if symbolically, this happened precisely on the eve of the day we pay tribute to the victims of the communist regime.

We will remember Dr. Zhelev as one of the bravest and most dedicated fighters for freedom and democracy, as a symbol of the peaceful transition, of tolerance and seeking a national consensus.

Dr. Zhelev’s road in life was not easy – the criticism he leveled against the totalitarian state was the reason for his being expelled from university, being deported, isolated. Despite all this he did not retreat from his civic and political position in defense of freedom and democracy. His works and his secretly distributed texts, transmitted from hand to hand, shed a beam of light in the long totalitarian night. His book “Fascism” which was banned by the communist censorship and was confiscated from the bookshops, started its own life and promptly became the most serious accusation against the totalitarian regime.

Zhelyu Zhelev was among those bold intellectuals who initiated and founded the Club for Glasnost and Reorganization in the emblematic 65th lecture hall of Sofia University in 1988. A year later Dr. Zhelev took part in the formation of the Union of Democratic Forces.  Despite his innate modesty, he was unanimously elected as leader of the anti-communist opposition and in a couple of months became a symbol of the Bulgarians’ fight for freedom and democracy.

As the first democratically elected Bulgarian president, Zhelyu Zhelev played an extremely important role for setting up and strengthening the presidential institution, for its becoming a center of stability and dialogue in the turbulent transition period. His presence in the international political arena, his adamant pro-European position, lending a hand to all Balkan neighbors, brought Dr. Zhelev considerable international prestige, which Bulgaria needed so badly after the collapse of communism. I would like to recall his words: “As a young, post-communist democracy, Bulgaria is respected by Europe and the world for two reasons: for the peaceful transition from communism to democracy and for the democratic manner in which our people found the strength to resolve the inter-ethnic conflicts, which in other countries provoked extreme violence and bloodshed.”

Until his very last day Zhelyu Zhelev carried out his crusade for peace. As he himself wrote, the difficult task of his last book, and I believe of his whole life was to decipher the lies, illusions and delusions…

Therefore all of us as citizens and a society can learn from the example set by Dr. Zhelev, from his resolution and his insight of a real statesman and a unifier of the nation. We should never forget his credo that “the majority of the Bulgarian people know the price of democracy and will always defend it!”  We should prove that we have learned the lesson he taught us that “the ulcers of democracy can be cured only with more democracy.” President Zhelyu Zhelev resembled the Bulgarian people – benevolent, tolerant, with an open heart and a hand lent to everyone. He was a good-natured and honest man, modest yet dignified in all his actions.  The Bulgarian people share these features.

Therefore today our nation is saying farewell to the first democratically elected President Dr. Zhelyu Zhelev with a feeling of grief and reverence.

We bow our heads today to his memory!