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I haven’t spent much time thinking about the political life and what was happening around us. I have always been leftist in my political convictions although I’ve never been a member of BCP, I actively participated in the Fatherland Front movement. My disappointments with the latter communist system appeared after 1989 because I found out a lot of things, which had been kept secret before that. During the coup d’etat on 10th November 1989 [32], I was accompanying my mother to the polyclinic and while she was being examined I listened to the radio. At the moment when I heard ‘Todor Zhivkov is down!’ [33] I was so amazed that we started sayng together with doctors and my mother ‘Mama, Todor Zhivkov is down!’, which for me was a real… quite of a…, even a shock you may call it because we were used to his being at the head since 1956. My life after the changes wasn’t much different from a financial point of view because with my mother we owned that apartment in Mladost quarter, I went on working at the Academy but as a pensioner. I retired in 1989 but had regular classes even after that. My stress from the changes were of a different nature. I had regular classes, I went to the Academy, the students didn’t come, I went back home and started crying because for a person with so many years of experience not to have students… My mother tryed to console me, ‘Reny, child…’. This is what she called me usually…’We will live on our two pensions’. My answer was, ‘Mama, it’s not about the money. I suffer because of that morality, that they associated politics with the language. And one of my best students told me, ‘Comrade Lidgi, it’s not because of you but because of the language.’
And there started this succession of events. Firstly, the students refused to, they didn’t attend the classes in Russian due to the common desire for a new order and new democracy after the coup of 10th November 1989. Secondly, my mother’s worsened condition which led to a operation and her death… And I can tell you that I would never forget one day when I was supposed to stay beside my mother’s bed and look after her but I had to go to the Conservatory. It was right after 10th November 1989. At that time the desire for a new order and freedom led to all kind of situations, especially among the young people. I had to take something from my cabinet in the Conservatory. A group of students met me at the door, ‘Where are you going?’. I said, ‘I need to take something from my cabinet, something…’ ‘You can’t do that, you don’t have the right.’ I said, ‘Who is in charge of you?’ ‘We have a commandant but he went to a happening.’ I said ‘Will anyone of you accompany me upstairs because I need to take something from it.’ It was a shock for me because the students turned against their teachers.
And there started this succession of events. Firstly, the students refused to, they didn’t attend the classes in Russian due to the common desire for a new order and new democracy after the coup of 10th November 1989. Secondly, my mother’s worsened condition which led to a operation and her death… And I can tell you that I would never forget one day when I was supposed to stay beside my mother’s bed and look after her but I had to go to the Conservatory. It was right after 10th November 1989. At that time the desire for a new order and freedom led to all kind of situations, especially among the young people. I had to take something from my cabinet in the Conservatory. A group of students met me at the door, ‘Where are you going?’. I said, ‘I need to take something from my cabinet, something…’ ‘You can’t do that, you don’t have the right.’ I said, ‘Who is in charge of you?’ ‘We have a commandant but he went to a happening.’ I said ‘Will anyone of you accompany me upstairs because I need to take something from it.’ It was a shock for me because the students turned against their teachers.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Reyna Lidgi