📅 ON THIS DAY IN BULGARIA, Wednesday 21 October
Valko Chervenkov, the communist leader nicknamed "Little Stalin", died on this day in 1980, and Shumen has a closer link to his story than most places: for more than fifteen years the city was named after the man he succeeded as prime minister.
What happened on this day
Valko Chervenkov was born in Zlatitsa, joined the Communist Party in 1919 and fled to the Soviet Union in 1925, where he rose to direct the International Lenin School and, English Wikipedia says, was recruited by the NKVD under the alias Spartak. He married a sister of the communist leader Georgi Dimitrov and returned to Bulgaria in 1944. He took over the party when Dimitrov died in 1949 and became prime minister in 1950, after the death of Vasil Kolarov. English Wikipedia ties his rule to a personality cult (it says Sofia's Medical University and a city district were named after him), collectivisation and large-scale persecution, with 100,000 of 460,000 party members expelled by 1953 and a tobacco workers' strike in Plovdiv put down violently that year. Bulgarian Wikipedia adds fast industrial growth and the introduction of free medical care, set against a serious fall in living standards.
After Stalin's death in 1953 the grip eased: many political prisoners were released, and in 1954 Chervenkov gave the party leadership to Todor Zhivkov. His fall came in 1956, when, Bulgarian Wikipedia says, he was criticised in Moscow for spreading the cult of Stalin and of his own person, by Zhivkov among others, and the April plenum removed him as prime minister on 18 April. It is a rather uncomfortable thing to hear when you are known as "Little Stalin". Expelled from the party in 1962 and readmitted in 1969, he spent his last years out of politics and died in Sofia on 21 October 1980; his memoirs, compiled by his daughter, appeared twenty years later.
Towns celebrating today
Two Rhodope towns keep 21 October as their town day, and both tie it to the 1912 Balkan War.
Kardzhali lies about 15 km from Perperikon, the Thracian rock sanctuary that Bulgarian Wikipedia lists among the country's Hundred National Tourist Sites. Its holiday marks 21 October 1912, when the Haskovo detachment freed the town after the battle of Kardzhali. The town is said to have joined Bulgaria at noon, which is why its clock plays Велик е нашият войник (ve-LEEK e NA-shee-yat voy-NEEK, "Great is our soldier") before striking twelve.
Smolyan is, at an average 1,035 m, the highest regional capital in Bulgaria, about 10 km from the Pamporovo ski resort, and stretches for nearly 25 km along its rivers. Its holiday on 21 October marks the liberation of the Rhodopes from Ottoman rule in 1912.
Why this matters for British expats
The Shumen link is the one to know. Vasil Kolarov, the prime minister Chervenkov succeeded, was born in Shumen, and from 29 January 1950, six days after he died, until 29 July 1965 the city was called Kolarovgrad, the same habit that gave the Soviet Union its Stalingrad. If you live here, it is a local reminder of how far that era reached, down to the place names; our Shumen guide covers the rest of the city's history. And if you are planning a trip south, Smolyan puts you about 10 km from Pamporovo's slopes and Kardzhali about 15 km from Perperikon.
Sources and further reading
This piece draws on the Bulgarian Wikipedia entry on Valko Chervenkov, read alongside the English entry and the Bulgarian pages on Vasil Kolarov, Kardzhali and Smolyan. The two Chervenkov pages differ in places, for instance on why and when he was first sentenced to death, so I have left those details out.