Some time ago I reported on this blog how the Bulgarian author Zachary Karabashliev campaigned for a veteran of the Bulgarian fascist and anti-Semitic “Legions” (in a FB post that he later edited by deleting the reference to the “Legions”) whom he called “a hero”. The same admiration was expressed by Karabashliev in a TV interview. The man in question, Dyanko Markov, has in the past repeatedly made public statements in which he described the deportation of the Jews in the areas annexed by Bulgaria in WWII to Treblinka as “relatively human”, and he even justified this deportation and murder of a “hostile population” in a speech in the Bulgarian Parliament a few years ago. Until today he identifies himself with the “values” of the Legions, an organization, which was created after the image of the German SA.

In my blog post I mentioned that Karabashliev and his fellow supporters, some of whom have been running a campaign for years to rehabilitate the anti-Semite Dyanko Markov and the fascist and anti-Semitic Bulgarian Legions, use a concrete incident described in the article to reiterate their historical revisionist theses on the heroism of the Legions, whose founder and leader Hristo Lukov is a figure venerated by Nazis throughout Europe today.

It is a tactic already applied in the past by a specific supporter of Dyanko Markov, to try to intimidate people who mention some for Markov and his fans uncomfortable facts with abusive words, as well as with the threat of legal action on the grounds of slander. So it was no surprise that Mr. Karabashliev, under the influence of the said person, sent me a formally polite and content-wise outrageous message, giving me an ultimatum of 48 hours to delete my allegedly “defamatory” contribution.

Although I can subjectively understand that – as he writes himself – my previous blog post is very unpleasant for him, I have to tell to Mr. Karabashliev however that he has to look who’s talking here. If he had not made the attempt to portray a man as a hero who – according to the final verdict of no less than three court cases on the exact same matter (Markov et al. vs. Yuliana Metodieva) – can be called an anti-Semite and a fascist – and who until today sticks to the ideals of his youth and propagates the anti-Semitic and fascist “values” of the Legions, while at the same time voicing holocaust apologies and denying the responsibility of the organization of which he was a member in the holocaust, my article would never have been written. And for a word that Mr. Karabashliev has distanced himself in the meantime from the Legions and the anti-Semite and fascist Dyanko Markov I have waited until now in vain.

What Mr. Karabashliev apparently has not understood until today: if a Dyanko Markov had been a member of the Legions and would have distanced himself credibly at some point in his life from the anti-Semitism and fascism of this immoral and inhuman organization, my article would also not have been written. But Markov is still a propagandist for the Legions and their anti-Semitism and fascism, he has participated several times in the notorious Nazi march in honor of Lukov, but Mr. Karabashliev finds him heroic and then begins moaning and whining when someone tells him that he is campaigning here de facto for the rehabilitation of an anti-Semitic and fascist organization, and also for the rehabilitation of a member who has not become in any ways distant to these “values” during his whole life.

Mr. Karabashliev has either committed a stupidity of gigantic proportions or he is sharing Markov’s political convictions and now, after several people have publicly criticized him for this, he seems to believe that the allegation of a lawsuit will cause me to tacitly delete my post. However, Mr. Karabashliev makes a mistake of judgment here. I am not intimidated by his threat.

I hope in his own interest that Mr. Karabashliev is informed by his lawyer that not everything that is personally unpleasant to him is slander. And that I have said something untrue about Mr. Karabashliev, he probably will not want to assert. That would be – because if he claims so, it is obviously not true – indeed slander by Mr. Karabashliev and therefore potentially a criminal offense. He may not realize his very delicate legal position in this case, but of course he, just like any other citizen, can choose the legal recourse to clarify which of the two of us has violated the law by claiming something false with the intention to tarnish the reputation of the other. The result could be quite surprising and even more unpleasant for Mr. Karabashliev than my blog post. In any case, I will continue to report on the activities of certain revisionist circles in Bulgaria, and in the future possibly in front of a larger international public.

Whether Mr. Karabashliev wants to be associated with anti-Semitic, fascist and historical revisionist circles in Bulgaria also in the future, or whether he realizes that he has got himself into something on this matter, which will permanently harm his reputation as a writer and person, I do not know, of course. The damage to his reputation, however, will be far greater and more lasting if he goes to court. The choice is up to him.

PS: Here is a report of the Bulgarian Jewish organization Shalom on anti-Semitism in Bulgaria. On page 8, Dyanko Markov and the Bulgarian Legions are also mentioned.

And here is a report on the three dismissed lawsuits, with which the journalist Yuliana Metodieva should be muzzled unsuccessfully in the dispute over Markov in the past.

© Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki, 2014-9. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.