Markov, George (writer)

Born in the family of a serviceman, his father, Ivan Markov (1908-1978), early left the service in connection with severe tuberculosis and worked as a kiosk. Mother, Raika, (1907-1985) was a housewife. Three children were born in the family - George (1929-1978), Nikolai (1931) and Vasily (? - 1950, died in infancy).

In 1946, George graduated from the First Gymnasium in Sofia. He began to study in the chemical specialty in Ruse, but after the closure of this specialty he moved to the State Polytechnic Institute in Sofia, which he graduated in 1953 with the qualification of a chemical engineer.

He worked as a process engineer at the state-owned industrial enterprise “Pobeda”, in the DIP “Stind”, from 1952 to 1958 he taught at the College of Ceramics and Glass. He left work due to illness in 1959.

At the age of 19, George fell ill with a severe form of pulmonary tuberculosis. He was treated for a long time (albeit intermittently), for more than ten years, depending on the stage of exacerbation, went to hospital. While in the sanatorium Vladaya, Markov makes the first literary attempts. Staying in medical institutions, and especially in the sanatorium in Vladaya, Markov, as he himself admitted, sincerely experienced the contradictions he observed "communist" society, with its contrasting "values" and pseudo-moral. In addition, the encounter with a severe and merciless illness forms Markov's characteristic features in the late period - a taste for life, ease of communication, charisma with well-known shades of epicureanism and an insatiable desire to live intensively - at the moment, “like for the last time”.

Materially independent, physically attractive and charming, Georgy Markov is becoming popular among the ruling communist elite in Bulgaria. He is admitted to the Union of Bulgarian Writers . However, critical notes gradually intensify in his works, and the form of this criticism becomes not only more open, but also dangerously touches upon the cardinal issues of the political structure and state system of Bulgaria. After the Prague spring of 1968, the authorities' tolerance for free criticism sharply declined, and Markov was beyond the bounds of the possible.

In 1969, he left for Britain , fleeing the persecution to which he was subjected for his convictions. Having settled in London, he marries the Englishwoman Annabelle Dilike, gets a job on the BBC radio station.

At first, Markov lived abroad quite legally, but after his unwillingness to return became apparent, the Bulgarian authorities canceled his passport. On December 27, 1972, Markov, as a defector, was sentenced by a Bulgarian court in absentia to 6.5 years in prison. Earlier that year, he was expelled from the Writers Union. Markov's works were seized from the libraries, and his name was not mentioned in the official Bulgarian press.

On September 7, 1978 , leaving work, Georgy Markov went to his car, parked at some distance. Passing through a crowd of people at a bus stop, he tripped on someone's umbrella and felt a shot. The man with the umbrella apologized and left.

The next day Markov began to suffer from bouts of nausea, the temperature rose sharply, and he was taken to the hospital. However, his condition worsened and after a while he died. Before his death, he managed to talk about the episode with an umbrella.

A police investigation conducted after Markov’s death showed that when an umbrella pricked a metal capsule with ricin , which was found at autopsy, was implanted in the calf of his legs ^[2] .

According to the former KGB general of the USSR Oleg Kalugin , the murder was sanctioned by the first secretary of the BKP Todor Zhivkov ^[3] . According to Kalugin, “in 1978, instructions were sent through him to Soviet agents to supply the Bulgarian special service with an umbrella with a spring, which was subsequently used to administer a dose of ricin” ^[3] . It is believed that the poison that poisoned Markov was made in the "Camera", or Laboratory 12 , as the KGB veterans call it ^[3] . According to other sources, the device was a pneumatic gun , firing a microcapsule with ricin and disguised as an umbrella ^[4] . For a reliable defeat, it was required to shoot from a very close range; in the case of Markov, the shot was fired at point blank range ^{[4] [approx. 1]} . The head of the organization of veterans of the Foreign Intelligence Service “Honor and Dignity”, Colonel Valentin Velichko, suggested that the murder was the last operation of the special department “B”, which was engaged in the elimination of political enemies ^[3] .

In April 1991, Oleg Kalugin told the Radio Liberty correspondent that in 1978, being the head of the K Department of the KGB State University (responsible for “working with refugees”), he connected his deputy Sergei Golubev with his Laboratory 12, ordering him to supply the Bulgarians means to kill Markov ^[5] .

In 1993, the former colonel of the first main department of the KGB of the USSR Oleg Gordievsky claimed that the liquidation of Markov was prepared by General Sergei Mikhailovich Golubev, who allegedly "personally carried the poison that was laid at the tip of a special umbrella" ^[6] . At the same time, Gordievsky emphasized that the main responsibility for the liquidation of Markov still lay with the Bulgarians, and not with the USSR ^[7] .

In June 2005, the British press, citing documents from the Bulgarian special services published in the Bulgarian press, reported that the main suspect in the murder was an Italian Francesco Gullino (Francesco Gullino or Giullino), who lives in Denmark ^{[8] [9]} .

On June 20, 2008, The Times reported that a group of British investigators arrived in Bulgaria for the second time in three months to investigate the murder of Bulgarian dissident Georgy Markov and suggested that they became aware of new information ^{[3] [10]} .

According to the press secretary of the Bulgarian state prosecutor's office, Rumyana Arnaudova, it was planned to close the case of Markov’s murder on September 12, 2013, after a limitation period of 35 years. An extension of the investigation required that a suspect in the commission of a crime be detained, charged or wanted. As of the moment, the identity of the offender has not been established and none of the above actions have been taken. In 2008, the Bulgarian prosecutor's office had already extended the investigation for five years in the hope that access to documents from the communist era would help in the investigation ^[11] .

Journalism

• “Back Report for Bulgaria” - 1978
• “It’s a lot of chapel chapels.” Novi back reports for Bulgaria ”- 1991

Novels

• Win on Ajax - 1959
• “Caesian Night” - 1957
• "Younger" - 1962
• Pokrivat - 2007

Pieces

• The Latest Patent - 1965
• "Cafe with a claim" - 1966
• “Yes, I’ve sinned under the dgata”
• "Communist"
• "Az by that"
• Asansyort - 1967
• "Atentat in the Locked Street" - 1968
• "Archangel Michael" - 1990, 1997

Short story, short story, short story

• "Questionnaire" - 1961 (collection)
• “Between Nochta and Denya” - 1961 (collection)
• “Portrait on my double” - 1966, 1996 (collection)
• “Marry Warsaw” - 1968 (collection)

• 1980 - A similar method of murder is played out in the French comedy “ Umbrella Trick ”.
• 1987 - in the Polish satirical comedy " Kingsize ", the special service of the state of the gnomes of Cabinetland uses an umbrella with a syringe.
• The incident is mentioned in the series " Breaking Bad ", when the main characters plot to get rid of the enemy, poisoning him with ricin.

Notes

1. ↑ An exact copy of Markov’s weapons is stored at the International Museum of Spying in Washington , USA.

Footnotes

• Thor Hanson The triumph of seeds. How seeds conquered the plant world and impact on human civilization = Thor Hanson The Triumph of Seeds: How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses, and Pips. - M .: Alpina Publisher, 2018 .-- 374 p. - ISBN 978-5-91671-809-6 .