Stara Zagora council rejects mayor’s plan to redesign communist memorial

At an extraordinary meeting called by Stara Zagora mayor Zhivko Todorov, municipal councillors rejected the administration’s proposal to carry out a project to reconstruct the “Monument to the Fallen Anti-Fascists – Bratska Mogila” in the city’s October 5 Park.

Todorov, when approached by “Za Istinata” the previous day, had already expressed doubts that his proposal would secure enough votes. In the end, however, the vote looked more like a pre-arranged escape route that allowed the mayor and the GERB-led majority on the council to avoid the political storm that a decision to alter the monument’s appearance could have triggered.

The conclusion is hard to avoid because whenever an issue is important to Todorov, he has traditionally been able to find enough councillors to push it through. This time that did not happen. Todorov appears to have little appetite for political noise and wants to remain acceptable to everyone rather than risk turning part of Stara Zagora’s public opinion against him – particularly those who want the monument to retain its current form and might even physically defend it from demolition.

The conceptual redesign of the monument was prepared by sculptor and conservator Nikola Stoyanov and his team.

It envisages removing the massive granite wall bearing the five-pointed star, hammer and sickle – communist symbols whose installation in public spaces is prohibited under Bulgarian legislation declaring the communist regime criminal.

Yet the mayor’s proposal to the councillors contains no such justification.

Instead, the reasons given for changing the monument’s appearance are that the area around it could become a public space bringing citizens together through culture, education and remembrance, and that renovating the memorial would improve the aesthetics of the urban environment.

That argument is little more than an attempt to sidestep the real issue, because the question of whether the monument should remain or be removed is ideological, not aesthetic. When those in power pretend otherwise, public trust is inevitably eroded.

The conceptual design for the new appearance of the monument was submitted by Stoyanov and his team to the National Institute for Immovable Cultural Heritage (NIICH), together with all the required components and a planning visa.

That process is necessary because shortly after the fall of the totalitarian regime in 1989, the monument was granted protected status as an immovable cultural property of local significance.

In effect, the then still-communist authorities in the city created a legal barrier against its possible removal or alteration.

After going through the relevant procedures at NIICH and the Ministry of Culture, the file was returned to the municipal administration in May with recommendations to attach a Stara Zagora council decision concerning the installation, relocation or removal of monumental sculpture, a planning scheme prepared under the Spatial Development Act by the chief architect, and an application for the project to be presented and defended before the Ministry of Culture, together with visualisations and a physical model.

It remains unclear why the file was allowed to languish for six months.

NIICH refused to provide the project to “Za Istinata”, arguing that the newspaper had not specified the purpose for which it was requesting the document.

After the newspaper provided that explanation, however, it emerged that the right to obtain the project belonged only to Stara Zagora Municipality.

The municipal council meeting: a poorly staged performance

The extraordinary meeting was called at short notice and was attended by just 38 of the 51 municipal councillors.

The council’s chairwoman, Iveta Lazarova, mayor Zhivko Todorov and deputy mayor for culture Milena Zheleva – whose portfolio covered the issue under discussion – were all absent. The monument was the only item on the agenda.

That fact alone says something about how important the proposal actually was to the mayor and his team.

Apart from deputy mayor Martin Paskalev, who was supposed to answer the councillors’ questions, though no such questions were ultimately asked, two other deputy mayors attended: Svetoslav Kolev, responsible for the budget and finance, and Pavlina Delcheva, responsible for healthcare and social affairs.

They appeared more as stage props than active participants.

There was no substantive debate.

Councillors, particularly those from the pro-Russian Revival party, simply repeated positions they had already expressed at previous meetings where the monument had been discussed without resolution.

When the vote was finally held, the mayor’s proposal was rejected.

Of the 38 councillors present, 34 voted. Just 10 backed the proposal, including three councillors from the We Continue the Change–Democratic Bulgaria group, which had originally proposed removing or transforming the monument. Seventeen voted against and eight abstained.

Among those abstaining were Emil Hristov, Anton Tonev, Boyan Babanov and Maria Zhekova from GERB – effectively helping to block their own mayor’s proposal.

Before submitting the monument redesign to the Ministry of Culture, Todorov should have put it to a broad public consultation and then brought it to a vote in the municipal council.

Instead, he started at the end.

The monument had apparently not been part of his plans when the renovation of October 5 Park began, despite the memorial standing at its centre. This became clear when “Za Istinata” asked whether the monument would remain in central Stara Zagora, which announced as early as 2023 that it intended to bid to become European Capital of Culture.

At the time, Todorov said the matter was not the administration’s responsibility but that of the municipal council.

He clearly did not expect the issue to be raised publicly by “Za Istinata” and by the We Continue the Change–Democratic Bulgaria group on the council. Instead of following the procedure required by law, he presented the municipal administration’s own project as preceding the opposition’s proposal.

The result was a dead end – with the council rejecting his proposal.

The issue is unlikely to disappear.

It will continue to divide Stara Zagora and is likely to inflame passions further. That is precisely why the mistakes – whether deliberate or accidental – need to be addressed.

First, there should be evidence establishing whether the communist memorial actually contains an ossuary. In its investigation, “Za Istinata” found no such evidence in the archives. The Regional History Museum also had no documents or information confirming it. The more plausible conclusion is that no remains of people killed as anti-fascists were ever reburied there.

Those who became victims during the so-called “White Terror” were buried in mass graves. Moreover, those killed between 1941 and 1944 could not simply have been reburied without an official exhumation order, if only because the process of decomposition of the remains was unlikely to have been complete.

Second, the status of the monument as an immovable cultural property of local significance should be reconsidered, with an assessment of whether there are grounds for maintaining that designation.

Third, a broad public discussion should be organised, involving all relevant institutions, historians, documentary researchers, urban planners, architects, journalists, non-governmental organisations and citizens.

Only then should a final decision be taken – one that does not divide society or turn history into an arena for political revenge, but instead builds a bridge between people of different backgrounds, beliefs, experiences and moral values.