Beginning in 1989, Bulgaria passed through a time of political, social, and economic transition that changed many of its basic institutions and subjected society to stresses unknown in the forty-five years of totalitarian communist rule. Events that occurred after the ouster of Todor Zhivkov in 1989 demanded a new and updated version of Bulgaria: A Country Study. Although Bulgaria was one of the most closed communist societies until 1989, subsequent relaxation of tensions and restrictions has made available an increasing amount of reliable information about both the communist and the post-Zhivkov eras. Scholarly articles and periodical reports have been especially helpful in compiling this new treatment of the country. The most useful of those sources, together with a smaller number of key monographs, are cited at the end of each chapter.

The authors of this edition have described the changes in Bulgaria occurring in the last twenty years, with special emphasis on the last three. They have used the historical, political, and social fabric of the country as the background for these descriptions to ensure understanding of the context of the important recent events that have shaped the Bulgaria we see today. The authors' goal was to provide a compact, accessible, and objective treatment of five main topics: historical setting, society and its environment, the economy, government and politics, and the military and national security.

In all cases, Bulgarian personal names have been transliterated from Cyrillic according to a standard table; place names are rendered in the form approved by the United States Board on Geographical Names; in the case of Sofia, the conventional international variant is used instead of the transliterated form (Sofiia). Unlike the previous edition of the Bulgaria study, this volume adds the diacritic ( ) to the letter "u" to distinguish the vowel ( ). On maps, English-language generic designations such as river, plain, and mountain are used. Organizations commonly known by their acronyms (such as BCP, the Bulgarian Communist Party) are introduced first by their full English names.

Custom Search

Source: U.S. Library of Congress