Circus Bulgaria

Circus Bulgaria
Author: Dei︠a︡n Enev
Publisher:
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2010
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

A boxer-turned-hitman faces an impossible mission to kill his brother; an old lady sets up a gang of her own teenage vigilantes after being mugged herself; a village boy faces the gruesome end of his beloved pet piglet; a retired geography teacher dreams of places he's never been; a clown on the make talks an impoverished lion tamer into selling his lion to gangsters; and, a fading beauty is courted by a suitor with suspiciously scaly hands - Drawing on the monsters and myths of Balkan folklore, the brutal reality of the Communist regime, and the dazzling magic of Enev's own imagination, these stories have an almost hypnotic and surreal quality. Absurd, both painfully funny and deeply sad, Circus Bulgaria, reaches straight into the cracked heart of the Eastern Europe.

A Concise History of Bulgaria

A Concise History of Bulgaria
Author: R. J. Crampton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2005-11-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1139448234

Bulgaria became a member of the European Union in 2007, yet its history is amongst the least well known in the rest of the continent. R. J. Crampton provides here a general introduction to this country at the cross-roads of Christendom and Islam. The text and illustrations trace the rich and dramatic story from pre-history, through the days when Bulgaria was the centre of a powerful medieval empire and the five centuries of Ottoman rule, to the cultural renaissance of the nineteenth century and the political upheavals of the twentieth, upheavals which led Bulgaria into three wars. This updated edition includes the years from 1995 to 2004, a vital period in which Bulgaria endured financial meltdown, set itself seriously on the road to reform, elected its former King as prime minister, and finally secured membership of NATO and admission to the European Union.

Diplomats and Dreamers

Diplomats and Dreamers
Author: Mari Agop Firkatian
Publisher: University Press of America
Total Pages: 378
Release: 2008
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780761840695

This book chronicles a family of diplomats who experienced the world in transition. Subjects of capricious fate, they forged a destiny as a family that overcame some of the most cataclysmic events of the twentieth century. Diplomats and Dreamers is a family biography that begins with the careers of the parents in 1887 and ends with the death of Nadejda Stancioff, their eldest child, in 1957. The context of historical developments in an uncertain period of European history highlights their lives. Members of the haute bourgeoisie, this accomplished family is noteworthy for an unflagging ability to survive and persist with success and grace. Furthermore, this book addresses issues of gender by using the careers of the Stancioff women as exemplars of how a woman could develop her life in an atmosphere of strict gender divisions in labor. The Stancioff women's way of fitting into the mainstream of elite society is yet another model of a new generation of women who stepped beyond the narrow expectations of what their gender could achieve. Based on unexplored, unpublished primary materials, this book enriches both women's history and European history.

Street Without a Name

Street Without a Name
Author: Kapka Kassabova
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand Limited
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2012-05-23
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1742539009

After years on the outside, Bulgaria has finally made it into the EU club, but beyond the clichés about undrinkable plonk, cheap property, and assassins with poison-tipped umbrellas, the country remains a largely unknown quantity. Born on the muddy outskirts of Sofia, Kapka Kassabova grew up under Communism, got away just as soon as she could, and has loved and hated her homeland in equal measure ever since. In this illuminating and entertaining memoir, Kapka revisits Bulgaria and her own muddled relationship to it, travelling back to the scenes of her childhood, sampling its bizarre tourist sites, uncovering its centuries' old history of bloodshed and blurred borders, and capturing the absurdities and idiosyncrasies of her own and her country's past. Also available as an eBook

The British Review

The British Review
Author: Richard Johnson Walker
Publisher:
Total Pages: 528
Release: 1914
Genre: English literature
ISBN:

Bulgaria in British Foreign Policy, 19431949

Bulgaria in British Foreign Policy, 19431949
Author: Marietta Stankova
Publisher: Anthem Press
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2014-07-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1783082356

The succession of great power influences in the Balkans played a key role in shaping Bulgaria’s international place and its domestic policy. Bulgaria in British Foreign Policy explores Britain’s involvement in Bulgaria between 1943 and 1949 and revisits the important issue of British attitudes towards Eastern Europe. Using recently released sources from the Bulgarian and Soviet Communist parties and foreign ministries, Stankova offers new insight into the nuanced origins of the Cold War in Bulgaria, and bridges significant gaps in the treatment of the country in English-language literature.

My Family is All I Have

My Family is All I Have
Author: Helen-Alice Dear
Publisher:
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2007
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

The extraordinary true story of how one British woman was trapped in Eastern Europe for fifty years, first by the Nazis and then by Communism, but never stopped trying to get back home... HELEN-ALICE DEAR was only fifteen when she left London to visit Bulgaria on a family holiday in 1937. Just weeks after her arrival, she found herself unable to leave and struggling to survive in an increasingly hostile and terrifying environment. Her marriage to a Bulgarian man bore her four children but they were often homeless, cold and hungry. Despite these hardships, Helen refused to give up hope and bravely managed to protect and raise her family. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Helen was finally able to fulfil her dream of returning to her homeland. Her beautifully written memoir is a heart-wrenching tale of courage and resilience, proving just how indomitable the human spirit can be.