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President Rumen Radev at Shipka Peak: "Bulgaria will prevail"

Photo: Facebook/Rumen Radev

In front of the Freedom Monument on Mount Saint Nichola (Shipka peak), at the solemn ceremony on the occasion of the 146th anniversary of the epic battles at Shipka peak during the Russo-Turkish War of Liberation, Bulgaria's President and supreme commander of the Bulgarian armed forces, Rumen Radev, paid tribute to the Bulgarian rebel fighters and the soldiers of the imperial army of Tsar Liberator Alexander II. In his official speech, the Bulgarian head of state pointed out that thanks to the feat of the heroes, the resurrected Bulgaria has been for a century and a half now again on the map of Europe. 

"All of us at this peak, the millions of citizens of the Republic, are Bulgarians and Europeans by birth, history and culture. Those who never come to Shipka believe that being European means renouncing being Bulgarian. It's a self-destructive complex. It is a pernicious fallacy that to be European is to scratch history, to mock tradition, to be ashamed of your national flag and to mock patriotism."

In the words of the president, it is "unforgivable irresponsibility to betray the ideals on which generations of Bulgarians have built their lives and work. The ideals of our Revival Period leaders, of Levski, Botev and Gotse Delchev.

"Here, in front of the Freedom Monument, we have gathered to declare that after the 'epic of the forgotten', we will not allow those who are always missing here at this peak to force an epic of the crossed out on us. To manipulate historical memory, to encroach on Bulgarian holy places and to wonder over the years how to throw Vazov out of the textbooks.

 "Today we say enough! The third of March is the red line of our patience", declared Radev, who pointed out that European Bulgaria has a future only when the political indifference that sows division, parasites on the division and trades in everything Bulgarian ends. Therefore, our country needs unity around statehood, history and national dignity, around democratic conquests and the freedoms of citizens, the president also emphasized.

"Dear compatriots, today we say NO to the creeping censorship, to the slander, to the substitution and the scandals, through which a project to steal the Constitution is being pushed. We say NO to attempts to destroy statehood, by taking over institutions for selfish, political and economic purposes. Today we end the countdown to the collapse and declare that Bulgaria will prevail: a republic of free and equal citizens who decide their own future."

"National self-consciousness and civic energy are called upon to protect us from spiritual and moral decay! The people's movement will not allow the Third of March to be erased, our national memory to be erased, and the Bulgarian statehood to be dismantled! Eternal memory for the heroes of the Shipka epopee!", stressed Rumen Radev in conclusion.



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