Ilya Stoyanov Minev ( Bulgarian. Ilya Minev ; December 15, 1917, Saranbey - January 6, 2000, Pazardzhik ) - Bulgarian politician and dissident , nationalist , anti-communist . Activist of the Union of Bulgarian National Legions . An implacable opponent of the BKP , a long-term political prisoner in the NRB . He was imprisoned longer than any of the famous political prisoners. Human rights activist , founder of the Independent Society for the Protection of Human Rights .
| Ilya Minev | |
|---|---|
| bulg. Ilya Minev | |
| Birth name | Ilia Stoyanov Minev |
| Date of Birth | December 15, 1917 |
| Place of Birth | Septemvry |
| Date of death | January 6, 2000 (82 years old) |
| Place of death | Pazardzhik |
| Citizenship |  Bulgaria  NRB Bulgaria |
| Occupation | activist of the Union of Bulgarian National Legions , underground, dissident, human rights activist |
| The consignment | Union of Bulgarian National Legions Independent Human Rights Society |
| Main ideas | Bulgarian nationalism , anti-communism , fascism , national democracy |
| Awards |  |
Content
Legionary Youth
Born in the family of a winemaker and wine merchant Stoyan Minev. From school years he showed active anti-communism , entered into fights with adolescents of communist views. He was badly beaten by activists of the PMC .
He studied at the French college of Plovdiv , continued his education in Toulouse . He received a specialty diploma chemist in industrial winemaking. Met in France with Francois Mitterrand .
Returning to Bulgaria, he joined the Union of Bulgarian National Legions . In 1941 - 1944 he was in the legionary leadership, oversaw international relations, headed the organization in Pazardzhik .
Prisoner Longer than Mandela
September 10, 1944 , on the second day after the Communist Party came to power, Ilya Minev was taken into custody. Soon released and was sent to the front against the Third Reich . After the Second World War, for some time he lived under a strange name, participated in the legionnaire underground. He was again arrested in 1946 for "fascist position and active anti-communism." He was tortured and beaten. Accused of reconstructing legions and planning a coup, sentenced to life imprisonment. Subsequently, the sentence was commuted to 25 years in prison.
With short breaks, Ilya Minev was in prisons of the NRB until 1978 , then was detained in the early and mid-1980s [1] . In total, he spent about five years in solitary confinement; he held hunger strikes for more than a year. In brief periods of freedom, he was engaged in anti-communist agitation, in 1971 he distributed leaflets against Todor Zhivkov .
The term of imprisonment of Elijah Minev exceeds that of Nelson Mandela [2] . In fact, Minev was detained for political reasons longer than anyone else.
In the human rights movement
After his release, Minev lived in Septemvri under the strict supervision of the state security and police. In 1984 - 1985 led an active advocacy. In 1987, he wrote an open letter to US President Ronald Reagan , which outlined the facts of violations of the rights of Bulgarian citizens. He was again arrested, after a 20-day hunger strike transferred to house arrest.
On January 11, 1988, the Independent Society for the Protection of Human Rights ( NDHR ) was established in the house of Ilya Minev. In September, Minev went on a hunger strike in defense of dissident writer Pyotr Manolov . The initiative of Minev and his associates has stepped up groups of Bulgarian dissidents.
It was an avalanche. Within a few weeks we had thousands of people, many of them Turks . Protests of the international PEN club began , worldwide fame appeared.
Stefan Vylkov , Bulgarian dissident, co-founder of the NDHR [3]
In early 1989, Ilya Minev was arrested for the last time. The official NRB press published articles accusing him of fascism , collaboration with the Gestapo, and especially anti-Semitism . Meanwhile, in July 1989, a group of Sofia members of the NDHR (among them Volen Siderov ) removed Ilya Minev from the chairmanship of the organization ( Rumen Vodenicharov was elected in his place). The founder of the NZDHR Minev was not even notified of this decision.
There are suggestions that Minev’s latest arrest and public accusations were an integral part of the plan for the state security leadership and the “pro Gorbachev ” party functionaries to remove Secretary General Zhivkov from power. This campaign contributed to the expansion of Minev’s popularity, attracted sympathy for him, aroused indignation at the arbitrariness of the authorities. In any case, Ilya Minev himself did not know about the role assigned to him.
“Democracy is not for people like you.”
After Zhivkov’s resignation on November 10, 1989, Ilya Minev was released and tried to join the opposition movement. However, the leaders of the emerging opposition did not even allow him to speak at rallies [4] .
On November 18, 1989, all opposition organizations held a joint rally with 50,000 participants. Among the speakers were Peter Beron , Rumen Vodenicharov, Konstantin Trenchev and future president Zhelyu Zhelev . At this rally, dissident Ilya Minev tried to speak, who served 33 years under the communist regime, but was not allowed to enter the rostrum. And rightly so - there is nothing for outsiders to do on gigantic “protests”. After he made popular the Independent Society for the Protection of Human Rights, now led by the “DC man” Rumen Vodenicharov, Minev only got in the way and got under his feet, and only the need to portray tolerance for dissent did not allow him to be imprisoned again [5] .
In public rallies around Minev, only small groups of staunch supporters gathered [6] .
Minev was not admitted to real politics in posledzhkovskoy Bulgaria. Published a newsletter. Free Speech . He remained a convinced national patriot and an implacable anti-communist. At the same time, he also reacted negatively to the Union of Democratic Forces :
Democracy is not for people like you. She is for us.
Ilya Minev - Zhelyu Zhelevu and Peter Beron [7]
Posthumous Honors
The 1990s, Ilya Minev lived in poverty, reaching poverty [8] . He died in the Pazardzhik nursing home.
A monument was erected at the grave of Elijah Minev in Septemvri. In 2000, he was posthumously awarded the Order of Stara Planina of the I degree [9] . In 2002, a monument to Elijah Minev was erected in Sofia . He was posthumously awarded the title of honorary citizen of his hometown, the square on which the bust is installed is named after Ilya Minev in Septemvri [10] .
Notes
- ↑ Elijah Minev before “Figaro”: Let Iskame loosen up for fear near the gate to the Bulgarin
- ↑ Uncompromising - Ilya Minev (unavailable link) . Date of treatment December 22, 2014. Archived December 22, 2014.
- ↑ 1989 Bulgarian: Refusal of Communism
- ↑ END OF EUROPEAN CAMP / NRB: difficult expansion
- ↑ Counter-revolution in Bulgaria - as it was archived on December 22, 2014.
- ↑ Anti-Communism in Bulgaria 1944-1989
- ↑ Ilya Minev - the antipoise on the Bulgarite in the country of Bulgaria
- ↑ Repression and libel. I see “a stable material situation”, which Ilya Minev reported
- ↑ John Atanasov, Georgi Markov, and Elijah Minev awards post-mortem
- ↑ ILYA MINEV. The symbol on the borbat for “Freedom, Democracy and the Rule of Law”