Bulgaria's Dossier Commission has presented one more collection of documents entitled "Taken from the Archives of DS - State Security and the ‘enemy’ radio stations”. This fourteenth edition includes documents that describe the activities of Western radio stations, condemned by the people's government for undermining the authority and the foundations of the socialist system in the countries of the Eastern Bloc. Bulgarians working in what Darzhavna Sigurnost (State Security) labeled as "propaganda stations" were considered "traitors to the homeland" and "enemy emigrants" and so anyone who listened to their broadcasts was committing a "moral crime." According to commission member Ekaterina Boncheva, the archives of the State Security had data about 20 "enemy" radio stations whose frequencies reached the territory of Bulgaria. Judging by the documents, DS focused primarily on six stations - Goryanin, Hristo Botev, BBC, Radio Free Europe, Deutsche Welle, and the Voice of America.

“According to the State Security, these stations were out to undermine the socialist system; to cause moral and political degradation and restore the bourgeois-capitalist ways,” adds Ekaterina Bontcheva. “But the attitude towards each of them was different. DS considered Radio Free Europe the most hostile enemy station of all. It promoted the bourgeois lifestyle and discredited the Bulgarian Communist Party and its leadership role, inciting various forms of provocation, relying on reactionaries in Bulgaria. Since "Free Europe" was one of the most dangerous radios to the regime there were attempts to silence broadcasters. There is a document from the 1970 collection, which states that the physical elimination of the target was necessary in two diferent places - at one point the physical elimination is mentioned and then further in the document comes the name of Todor Zhekov. He had a death sentence in Bulgaria that had to be carried out. In the archives concerning "Free Europe" and the "BBC" there is information about the activities of emigrant writer Georgi Markov and the harmful effect of his broadcasts to the communist regime.”

In order to stop the "exposure" of Bulgaria to enemy propaganda Darzhavna Sigurnost applied a differentiated approach using selective and full jamming of shortwave frequencies. Jamming depended on the content of programs. There were periods in which radio programs could be more easily received, but during events, such as those in Czechoslovakia in 1968, they were jammed completely. The attitude towards the BBC was softer as its propaganda was considered more “well-meaning”. A policy of discrediting was applied to Deutsche Welle as it "incited anti-Soviet sentiments". Besides jamming, Darzhavna Sigurnost also deployed its agents at enemy radio stations. The DS' action against enemy radio stations was coordinated with the KGB and the secret services of other countries from the socialist bloc. Financing used for dealing with enemy radios was huge as foreign broadcasting targeted at Bulgaria was perceived as a serious threat. "It is clear that only the radio among other media could penetrate the Iron Curtain, Professor Georgi Lozanov says. That is why so much attention was given  to the influence of radio stations." 

 
"We knew that we lived in a world behind a curtain, but we did not know what was on the other side of it and what the voice was coming from there. Listening to that voice coming from another world every day, even though it was jammed brought some kind of a romantic feeling. The truth is that in addition to trying to stop a different opinion penetrating from the outside, the DS was also pursuing those who listened to these programs. These documents give the perspective of DS, that this was propaganda against communism and Bulgarian society of that time. The collections of the archives of the DS should not be seen as pure history. They are a collection illustrating the history of the DS. This is not the story of foreign radio stations but the story of what DS did or wanted to do against them. Therefore, we must be careful in our treatment of this archive. "

English: Alexander Markov