Neglect of Bulgaria

I am puzzling over the lack of interest British writers (of any sort) seem to have shown in Bulgaria and the larger interest British writers have taken over the ages in Romania, whether from novelists such as Bram Stoker and Olivia Manning; travellers such as Sir Sach Sitwell, Patrick Leigh-Fermor, Devla Murphy and William Blacker; or historians such as Robert Seton-Watson, Dennis Deletant , Keith Hitchins and Tom Gallagher (both of whom I referred to yesterday)

Romania has had a much larger and more industrial population than Bulgaria- with a highly educated and articulate intelligentsia (with strong French connections) making its mark in the inter-war period in various cultural fields. Unlike Bulgaria, it had been ruled with a light touch from Constantinople. Bulgaria’s experience of the Ottoman Empire and Turks was much harsher and its celebration of independence deeper and more lasting than Romania’s – which has had long reason to be sceptical of its governors, no matter how Romanian.

Bulgaria has seemed for the past century sleepily rural and romantic as caught in a marvellous book published in 1931 by the Balkans' correspondent for the Chrstian Science Monitor RK Markham. His Meet Bulgaria has delighful photos and can be read in its entirety in the link. And the country looked more to Russia for support – even before 1945 – although many of its painters spent formative time in France, Munich and Italy.

A Concise History of Bulgaria is the only history book I can find (although Wikipedia has a long and useful note on the various phases of its history) – and it’s significant that the Lonely Planet website could list in 2010 as books worth reading only the 1912 novel Under the Yoke; other novels on the same theme of war with the Turks and books about gypsies!

The best Guides for me are The Rough Guide to Bulgaria which does contain at page 461-64 of the link a list of English books on Bulgaria (many out of print) as well as a useful section on the country’s music; I also highly recommend a locally-produced Bulgaria Tour Guide  (Tangra 2006). A heavy, glossy 670 pager with superb small illustrations – for only 15 euros. And also this delightful little book which features some of the amazing small bed and breakfasts in the countryside you can stay at for a song. 

And the only decent blog I can find in English from or about the country is a young American teacher's who, in a straightforward and charming way, describes her experiences (with Sofia mainly), including a variety of photographs which indeed give a good sense of the place. It was her blog which alerted me to the reopening of the National Gallery. And her kind response to this blog has given me access to her own list of books about Bulgaria worth reading. Many thanks!

Both countries have superb landscapes – and they are both proud peoples. Somehow, the Bulgarian pride is simpler. Since Winston Churchill’s put-down in the late 1940s of the Leader of the Labour Party – “a modest man – he has a lot to be modest about”, I hesitate to use that adjective. But that is part of the attraction of the Bulgarians – they are not pretentious and have not spoiled their country. My tour last year of the regional municipal galleries (notes at the back of my booklet on Bulgarian realist painters) showed me positive officials of a sort I rarely encounter in Romania. Their small country has so many more interesting places to visit throughout the country – from historic sites and buildings to sea and ski resorts – and the style and service you get is impressive. Their lack of Romania’s elitist intellectual tradition is, I think, their saving grace.

The aquarelle is by a not very well known Bulgarian - C Ionchev

Some good guides for the visitor to Romania

At the beginning of last month I did a roundup of blogs on/from Romania which are available in English. I omitted, however, one very significant one. It may not frequently post – but is always worth reading since it comes from Caroline Juler, the author of the excellent Blue Guide to Romania  – for my money far and away the best guide to the country.

Juler’s post of 30 August gave very useful background on how the EU farm policy affects the country

Romania has millions of small-holdings which are not considered commercially viable but which support the people who run them.  Calling them subsistence farmers implies that they are unable to support themselves in any way, which isn't necessarily the case.  A lot of 'subsistence' farms produce food for the families who work on them, and in Romania the coldly bureaucratic notion of a subsistence farm is so alien to the character of a small, working family farm that it's laughable.  Romanians use the term gospodarie, which means home, hearth, the centre of the family, a spiritual haven, a place where people grow real food rather than the processed muck that global corporations want everyone to buy, they embody self-reliance and self-sufficiency, and encompass hundreds of years of tradition and history...  If the world had more gospodarii, we might have less starvation.

Juler’s blog is part of a larger website which encompasses her other interests

Yesterday’s post raised some delicate issues about how foreigners experience modern Romanians and Bulgarians. I know this leads into some ridiculous generalisations – country folk are different from urban; young people from old; Transylvanians from those in the plains; etc etc. But those visiting other countries like to get a handle on these things – and will then proceed to make up their own minds on the basis of the places and people they find themselves with.

I was interested to find this (fairly recent) list of books in English which wold be useful for visitors to Romania

Alan Ogden’s books I have not, sadly, yet read. But several good books don’t figure on this list -

- The Pallas Guide to Romania edited by John Villiers is more of a cultural and historical treatment of the country as a whole than a travel guide. As with all Pallas Guides, it has superb old black and white graphics and photos – and rates in my collection of “beautiful books”. Cheap copies were easily found in Bucharest’s second-hand bookshops earlier in the year.

- Historian Lucian Boia’s Romania  can actually be downloaded in full from that link. It’s a very nicely written history – the only one which is easily available (Keith Hitchins is more detailed but covers only 1866-1947 and is older)

- Tom Gallagher has written extensively and vigorously about the country’s post-communist politics. Details of his two books on the subject are in the link – and his Theft of aNation can be googled here       

- Mountains of Romania is a lovely guide for the hill-walker

Worlds Apart at the Danube

Today I remember a good man who died exactly two years ago. Ion Olteanu was a friend who devoted much of his life to the youth of the country – encouraging them to get involved in their localities; to establish youth parliaments in their towns; and to make contact with their European counterparts. He was a philosopher by training and had the dry manner of the Romanian intellectual – but, unlike that class, had a passion and real commitment to make Romania a better place. And transmitted this to the teenagers he (and his wife) worked with. I saw this vividly at a couple of the events he was kind enough to ask me to perform at.

I first met him in the Prime Minister’s offices at Piata Romanie in the mid-1990s where he was responsible for the initial attempts to develop a strategy for working with non-governmental organisations. I wrote this paper for him. Faced with a reshuffle, he chose to leave the civil service and move to the hand-to-mouth world of international grants. I wasn’t all that close to him although we did pop in unannounced from time to time to his flat in the centre of Bucharest which was, with its mass of files and papers, more like an office – not least with the other visitors. Last year I dedicated a post on policy-making to him. 

Today I devote this post to his memory. It is a post written spontaneously (ie I have no idea where it will go) on yet another glorious cloudless if nippy morning in the Carpathian mountains – between the Piatra Craiului and the Bucegi ranges. And written in this lovely old house given a new life by his friend Daniela over the past 12 years. In her love of the vernacular Romanian architecture (and efforts to preserve it) she is in a tiny minority here in Romania – despite the best efforts of Valentin Mandache and Sarah in Romania. 

For reasons I don’t yet pretend to understand, Bulgarians seem to value their traditional village houses much more than Romania – despite (or perhaps because) the socio-economic dereliction which has overtaken so many Bulgarian settlements. After its “liberation” in 1989 Romania went for the American dream – with all the “creative destruction” and modernist eyesores that involves. I was, therefore, delighted to purchase recently a book which showcases some old restored houses here in Romania 

And also pleased to see this post on one town’s architectural heritage by one of my favourite Romanian bloggers.

The pity is that people don’t seem able to get together to cooperate properly here – the trust and respect which that requires seem for the moment to have been destroyed in this country. That’s one of the things which Olteanu was fighting to restore……

Alternating, as I have in the past 5 years, between Bulgaria and Romania has made me think a lot about cultural differences. Despite sharing the Danube as a border, the citizens of the two countries have (apart from the summer trips to the Bulgarian part of the Black Sea  - which are such good value) little contact and know very little about each other. It hasn’t helped that the Dobrogea area at the Black Sea has changed hands several times in the past few centuries – nor that the Bulgarian alphabet is Cyrillic and the Romanians so profoundly Latin  

Although Romania attracts far fewer foreign residents (partic Brits) than Bulgaria, it has a fair number of ex-pat bloggers - perhaps due to its exoticism. One of them talks feelingly in the online book he has made of his blogs about the country

A Romanian wife’s fury is as legendary as it is short. In the morning, you can have your ear chewed off – my sins generally rotate around where I leave my shoes in the hall and woe betide me if by briefcase ever touches the kitchen table! There are constant bumps like this - yet by evening, she is back to chilled and happy as if we never argued at all.
Romanian girls do seem to work much harder in the home than their British counterparts. My wife is always scrubbing and cleaning our 1 bedroom apartment (we even took on a maid to further help!)
You do need, however, to develop a skin like a rhino, as every small mistake you make in life is blown up into something significant, before floating away again into nothingness

And two books have been produced recently by Brits on the country - William Blacker' s elegant if controversial Along the Enchanted Way; and Mike Ormsby's more gritty Never Mind the Balkans, here's Romania. And here's a recent documentary on the country which suggests that Ceaucescu's baneful influence is still active.

After several years of familiarity with Romania, I suddenly found myself based in Sofia. The Bulgarians were down-to-earth, modest and….well..bourgeois! Not least in the extent of small spaces in the centre where old and young alike can set up shop themselves - whether to sell cigarettes, haircuts, coffee, paintings or clothes. I've commented on this here; here; here; and here. 

One of the key books on cultural values is Richard D Lewis’s When Cultures Clash – a complete version of which I have just discovered online. Some of the values he attributes to Bulgarians (on page 319) are disciplined, sober, pragmatic, cautious, stubborn, good organisers, industrious, inventive.
The terms he uses for Romanians are – pride in being a Balkan anomaly, opportunism, nepotism, volatility, self-importance, unpredictability, tendency to blame others, black humour…..

Certainly I know that my Romanian friends sometimes get impatient with what they – as tough, direct speakers – feel as the polite hypocrisy of Bulgarians! As a Scot who has felt the same about a certain type of Englishman, I know what they mean! Certainly I find it fascinating that Bulgarian paintings of the 20th century speak to me in a way which the Romanians don't.....

I feel an important project could be one focusing on Bulgarian-Romanian relations. The EU is putting a lot of money into trans-Danube projects – pity that cultural aspects don’t seem to have been addressed.
I've reached the age when I think how the money I leave behind might be used to further passions of mine - whether conceptual or sensual. One idea which occurred to me recently was to leave a small fund which could encourage Bulgarian and Romanian painters/artists to come together once a year (starting with my village here!)
It would have been great to work with Olteanu on this!

The painting is an Atanas Mihov (1879-1974) - "washing at the Danube" which can be seen at the Russe Art Gallery

Distractions and Choices

Writing – let alone blogging – is a solitary activity. The thought which (hopefully!) precedes writing is more of a social process – requiring the stimulus of discussion or at least reading. But putting words together requires some protection from the pressures of everyday living – and the last week has seen many of these, with various technical challenges from the central heating system and my faithful 14 year-old Daewoo Cielo car.
A great dump of Amazon books and Truffaut films hasn’t helped the writing – nor the glorious weather. The books have been a mix of le Carre novels, Chinese and Scandinavian detective stories, Mackintosh-Smith travelogues, art books (Infinite Jest – caricature and satire from Leonardo to Levine and Simon Schama’s The Power of Art - whose (video) treatment of Turner you can see here) and a few serious treatises such as David Graeber’s Debt - the first 5,000 years and Why we disagree about climate change.

Anyway, back to cars. I am one of these people for whom a car is a facility for getting me from city a to cottage b with minimum fuss and cost and who, having bought it, doesn’t want to think about a car again for many years. I was almost 50 before I bought my first new car – having been well-served initially with an old French Simca; then had a series of second-hand Volvos before succumbing to my first new car in 1989 – a modest Fiat Tipo which faithfully took me around Central Europe in the early 1990s from my Copenhagen base. I've also been lucky with my Daewoo – it’s recognised that the early models assembled here in the Romanian plant were the best. I also ran a 10-year old Audi Estate in Kyrgyzstan for a couple of years and was delighted with the experience. 

Noting the high level of satisfaction from buyers of Skoda cars (and the fuel consumption of their diesels) I settled on this brand – but have been a bit put off both by three things - their prices; the complication of the choice of engine size, fuel and names; and feedback I have been getting from mechanics about the inferior nature of some of the materials in the newer models.
I cannot be bothered with all the apparent choices I am presented with. And I am downright cynical about the claims made - not least about reliability. How come the marketing international companies do doesn't throw up this basic profile?? I';m sure I'm not unique...After all Volkswagen (Skoda's parent company) gave us the Beetle. Where is today's version??? Coincidentally I came across this interesting article on the issue of consumer power.
Our economic system is based on planned obsolescence. And the four-year guarantees in this part of the world are apparently not worth the paper they are written on – an interesting test of European integration.
So I am back to thinking of a 10 year old Audi – except that four-wheel is a better bet in this part of the world! Choices, choices…… 

The superb weather continues - although I look forward now to Sofia - a great  exhibition in the Sofia City Gallery celebrating its 60th anniverary; a reopened National Gallery (which I know about thanks to a private blog - not the official site!; a Toni Todorov exhibition at Vihra's Astry Gallery from 1 November; and a Victoria Gallery auction on 15 November

And, in the meantime, I discovered today this interesting website about the Bulgarian painter Georgi Zhelezarov (1897-1982) - which gives a nice sense of the national art of the period. 

Toni Todorov is a contemporary - and the above is taken from a calendar of his work which Vihra kindly gave me. That's another feature of Bulgaria - the number of (Bulgarian) art calendars you can find - and the frequency with which hotels everywhere display original Bulgarian paintings.

Taken for a ride - UK rail privatisation

I always try to be fair on this blog – even to Sarah Palin! One subject, however, on which it is difficult for me to remain objective is the privatisation of the UK railways – now costing the British taxpayer some three times more (allowing for inflation) than did state ownership and costing the passenger some 4 times more (and greater inconvenience) than equivalent travel in the rest of Europe. It is a marvellous case-study of, variously, policy development (on what evidence was the policy brought in and discussed?); democratic accountability (who wanted it – and has supported it?);  civil service management (skill preparation) and neo-liberalism.

It was a mad scheme from the start (in 1993) – totally against basic economic theory (or what remains of it). Rail is a natural monopoly. Services cannot run against one another. So sections of the system are put out for tender by the State for 10-15 year “franchises”. About 2,000 companies are involved in these contracts and sub-contracts – with all the bureaucracy (let alone profit-taking) this involves. And that is before we bring into play the new regulatory systems set up to monitor targets and ensure that the customers and government were not being “taken for a ride” (excuse the pun) by the private monopolies. I do not pretend to understand the complex (and ever-changing) process by which public assets were sold up, franchises awarded and regulatory systems managed. A 2004 paper by Prof Stephen Glaister seems to give a lot of the detail – if you have the patience to follow it all.

The last 19 years have seen a lot of problems – train collisions; bankruptcy of RailTrack; huge rise in complaints – but they are small beer compared with the scandal which has now erupted over the contract for the West Coast line (London to Glasgow) which has just been cancelled due to irregularities (so typical for procurement processes). Three senior civil servants in the Ministry of Transport have been suspended (one intriguingly an ex-employee of a merchant bank) – and the Government seems to be using this is a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to shake up the civil service (again).  

Even ex-civil servants are playing the government’s game of faulting the civil servants rather than the crazy system they are forced to play in.

What I have never understood is the reluctance of the Labour Party while in power to honour the clear and detailed statement it made in 1993 to renationalise – despite the strength of public opinion against the mess of privatisation and of the intellectual argument for renationalisation. 

Closer Admiration

Lists of people one admires, of course, say as much about the person making the list as those on the list – about the qualities in people we respect and look for in others if not in ourselves. Authenticity, generosity, curiousity, passion and integrity are key values for me - choosing one’s own path; and being open to others.

I admire 83-year old Viciu, my neighbour, for his resilience (tending to the livestock so cheerily); his carpenter skills; and his warm acceptance of me as an eccentric outsider.

I admire my friend Stefan in Slovakia for the way he has led the renaissance of an old Hungarian Palace which serves a mixture of a training centre, hotel and art gallery; given life to the village in which it is located; and for his passion for cultural travel and collecting artefacts.

I admire my friend Vihra in Sofia for her passionate encouragement of Bulgarian contemporary artists through the special exhibitions and vernissajs she arranges in her small gallery – and the beautiful bookmarks which accompany each exhibition.

I can think of quite a lot of “local heroes” I knew in the West of Scotland (not least my father).

Most belonged to the “old school” who had experienced poverty and the war. It is, I think, difficult for the materialistic and narcissistic post-war generation to develop real values.

I spent my formative years (26-50) as a reforming Regional politician (with an academic base) – so had an unusually wide range of contacts (political, professional, community). I consorted with senior people of all sorts – civil servants, politicians, journalists, policemen, social workers…. and felt that most were operating beyond their level of competence…..

Most people expected me to move on to national politics – but I had looked into the eyes of so many national politicians and seen so much emptiness. Tam Dalyell was a maverick Labour politician I admired – you can sense his integrity from the detailed obituary he wrote here for John Smith, the Scottish politician whose death in 1993 (?) robbed us of a better Labour PM in 1997  

Amongst the 103 councillors elected to the powerful new Strathclyde Region in 1974 with me, there were many of the time-servers you would expect to find.  But the powers of the new Region had attracted a good calibre of politician - the experienced leadership of the old counties and a good mix of younger, qualified people (despite the obvious full-time nature of the job, we were expected to do it for a daily allowance of about 15 euros. Clearly the only people who could contemplate that were the retired, the self-employed or those coming from occupations traditionally supportive of civic service - eg railwaymen or, like myself, educationalists)

With a strong sense of heading into the unknown, a dual leadership was created - with the public persona (the President and Policy Leader) being someone fairly new to politics, a Presbyterian Minister (without a church) who had made his name in "urban ministry" working with the poor. Geoff Shaw inspired great respect - particularly in the world outside normal politics - and brought a new approach. He was determined to have more open and less complacent policy-making: particularly with respect to social inequalities.

Appointed as the Leader of the Majority Group (and therefore holding the patronage powers) was an older and politically much more experienced man - an ex-miner. Dick Stewart may not have had the formal education and eloquence of Geoff but he commanded respect (and fear!) amongst both politicians and officials of the Council for his ability to get to the heart of any matter and for his honesty. He readily grasped the key elements in any issue: and would not easily deviate from policy. To persuade him to change, you had to have very strong arguments or forces on your side - and a great deal of patience. This made for policy stability: occasionally frustrating but so much more acceptable than the vacillation and fudge which passes for so much policy-making! Geoff stood for moral direction: Dick for order.

Both had a deep sense of justice: and utter integrity to their principles. And the new political structures unusually adopted for this most unusual of local authorities gave them both an equal share in policy leadership.

The difference in perspectives and styles occasionally caused problems: but both approaches were very much needed in the early years. Sadly, when 4 years later, the Convener died, the tensions led to a rethink of the concept: and all power concentrated in the hands of the Leader. 

Admiring - and meeting - Remarkable People

I was once asked who I admired – and didn’t find it easy to answer. The dictionary definition (“to regard with wonder, pleasure or approval”) doesn’t seem to me to go far enough. For me, to admire is “to look up to” and has connotations not only of skill but of moral courage. I can admire someone’s eloquence or writings – but not necessarily the person (not, at least in the absence of knowing him/her). I can list some of my “heroes” – people who shone a light at an important stage in my development – and whose work is still worth reading. They would include George Orwell, Reinhardt Niebuhr, EH Carr, RH Tawney, Karl Popper, Ivan Illich……and Tony Crosland who was the only one whom I was fortunate enough to meet and talk with (briefly) when he visited my local Labour Party when I was its chairman in the early 1960s - a few years after he had written the definitive Future of Socialism.

But it was his colleague Hugh Gaitskell whom I really admired for the courage he showed in the late 1950s – as Leader of the Opposition – in standing up to fight for what he believed in. I had talked with him at his house in the late 1950s (invited with other promising young reformers) and was transfixed listening on the radio to his defiant speech at Labour's 1960 party conference where two unilateralist resolutions were carried and the official policy document on defence was rejected. Gaitskell thought these were disastrous decisions and made a passionate speech where he stressed that he would "fight and fight and fight again to save the party we love". This was at a time when I was highly ambivalent about the nuclear issue and would shortly afterwards become an active nuclear disarmer. But I had to admire his courage and oratory.

I was also lucky enough in those days to have a session fixed up for me in the late 1960s with Wilfred Brown, head of the Glacier Metal company and the man who, with the help of Elliott Jaques,  oversaw several experimental efforts in empowerment, workplace democracy, compensation, pricing and organizational design that culminated in the almost two-decade long efforts (1948-1965) led by Dr. Elliot Jaques. This unique collaboration between a CEO and a researcher — which Peter Drucker called "the most extensive study of actual worker behavior in large-scale industry" — resulted in one of the only true comprehensive systems of management and led to groundbreaking discoveries and management methods that challenged almost every area of management and organizational design. For a simplified version of Brown's practice and theory see here. 

Such a combination of leadership with respect for both people and organisational learning is rare indeed

These memories of remarkable people I’ve met were sparked off by an interview with Senator Bennie Saunders in the interesting Orion Magazine. He too I met (in the late 1980s) when he was the “democratic socialist” mayor of Burlington, Vermont, USA. I happened to be in Vermont, knew of him and asked to meet him (as a fellow democratic socialist politician). He has shown immense guts not only in the various fights he has taken on with corporate interests in his attempt to represent the ordinary citizen – but for the simple act of not disguising his basic values.   

Perhaps the most remarkable person I ever met was a Romanian - Cornel Coposu – then (1991) Leader of the newly re-established Christian Democratic Peasant  Party who was condemned in 1947 to spend 15 years in prison for his activities in the National Peasant Party. After his release, Coposu started work as an unskilled worker on various construction sites (given his status as a former prisoner, he was denied employment in any other field), and was subject to surveillance and regular interrogation.[]

His wife was also prosecuted in 1950 during a rigged trial and died in 1965 soon after her release, from an illness contracted in prison. Coposu managed to keep contact with PNŢ sympathisers, and re-established the party as a clandestine group during the 1980s, while imposing its affiliation to the Christian Democrat International.

I also had brief but one-to-one meetings with two great German Presidents -  Richard von Weizsacker and Johannes Rau. Weizsacker was a Christian Democract and President 1984-1994 and West Berlin Mayor 1981-84. Rau was a Social Democrat; President 1999-2004 and Head of the huge RheinWestphalen Land (Region) from 1978-98. I was lucky enough to meet both of these men informally and can therefore vouch personally for the humility they brought to their role. Weizsacker was holidying in Scotland and popped in quietly to pay his respects to the leader of the Regional Council. As the (elected) Secretary to the majority party, I had private access to the Leader’s office and stumbled in on their meeting. Rau I also stumbled across when in a Duisberg hotel on Council business. He was not then the President – but I recognised him when he came in with his wife and a couple of assistants, introduced myself ( as a fellow social democrat); gave him a gift book on my Region which I happened to be carrying and was rewarded with a chat.

And then there was Tisa von der Schulenburg - Prussian aristocrat, nun and artist in 1920s Berlin who supported her brother in the plot to assassinate Hitler whom I met a few years before her death (at 97!) – at an exhibition of the sketches she had done in the 1939s of the Durham miners.

"Tisa" Schulenburg's life was by any standard remarkable. Having grown up among the Prussian nobility and witnessed the trauma of Germany's defeat in the Great War, she frequented the salons of Weimar Berlin, shocked her family by marrying a Jewish divorce in the 1930s, fled Nazi Germany for England, worked as an artist with the Durham coal miners, and spent her later years in a convent in the Ruhr.

Her experience of the darker moments of the 20th century was reflected in her sculpture and drawing, in which the subject of human suffering and hardship was a constant theme - whether in the form of Nazi terror or the back-breaking grind of manual labour at the coal face. 

When she heard that I was a politician from Strathclyde Region - with its mining traditions in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire - she presented me with a signed portfolio of her 1930s drawings of the NE English miners for onward donation to the Scottish miners.

And I almost forgot my memorable lunch with the Greek actress Melina Mercouri!
So what do all these stories tell? All but one of the people I;ve mentioned are dead! And those I met, I met only for a few minutes - 60 at most. Does this mean we can admire only from afar? Hopefully not.

In a future post I want to say something about "closer admiration"

The painting at the top of this post is one of Tony Todorov - of whom I spoke yesterday