1 OBEKTIV

No one knows whether the readers of the Atakanewspaper, published by the nationalists and with cir-culation still unable to reach the number of viewers ofthe SKAT TV network, perceive their leader as a culturalphenomenon. It is true that his articles seem dense withinformation, always abundant with messages, but hisfollowers would hardly question his intellectual abilitiesand sophistication. Not that they need to. VolenSiderov’s politics and journalism boil with a mixture ofBalkan bad-temperedness and pub-like belligerence.Figuratively speaking, he is capitalizing on this tendencyto bristle in a “who the hell are you” style. At his rallies, thepublic manifestation of these methods is recorded byforeign TV cameras, sending a message that “these”will be part of the European Union. I would like to remindyou that, as a rule, Volen Siderov is either pointing outthe culprits for the decommissioning of blocks 3 and 4 ofthe nuclear power plant, collecting signatures againstthe deployment of US military bases in Bulgaria and themindless war in Iraq, or throwing fresh bait in the form ofnew data about gypsy “crime” and corruption withinthe Movement for Rights and Freedoms.

At Christmas, Volen surpassed himself. His article “Waris waged against Christ since his birth” is voluminous andrichly illustrated. Apart from the God-loving picture cap-tioned, “The Jewish leaders were the first and most ma-licious ones in the war against Christ”, the newspaperalso includes – obviously at the author’s insistence – acopy of the Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution forEurope, adopted by consensus by the European Con-vention on July 13, 2003. Siderov summarizes his ideol-ogy in the subtitle: “The latest achievement of the en-emies of our faith is the European Constitution, whichdenounces any referral to Christian values”. That isenough. This is not something new to Ataka’s foreignpolicy rhetoric. By the way, the intolerance manifestedby Siderov’s ultra-right supporters to non-ChristianTurkey’s EU accession is comparable to a recent state-ment by Ivan Kostov, who proposed that Bulgaria shouldoppose our southern neighbor’s membership in theEuropean Union!

Volen’s huge article does contain news, though. Thenews is not in the loud blabber of his next declaration ofloyalty to Orthodox Christianity and his intolerance tothe Jews. By the way, the publication on the eve of thepresidential elections of a photo of Siderov together withprominent Holocaust deniers prompted many observ-ers to recall the blatant compilation of anti-Semitic texts(mostly from Russian chernosotnik authors) on the

Volen, the Illiterate Journalist and PoliticianYuliana METODIEVA

“worldwide conspiracy of the Jews” in his book The Boo-merang of Evil. No. On the eve of 2007, the article “Waris waged against Christ since his birth” is an exceptionalmanifestation of something that the author obviouslyhas not even suspected. This is a text in which the simple-minded and disgraceful illiteracy of a man whose CVincludes some years of study at a theological depart-ment screams to be noted. For several reasons.

“Christ’s first enemies”, writes Siderov, “are the Jew-ish Pharisees who actually embraced a chauvinistic andanti-human doctrine of supremacy and hatred for any-

one who was not a Jew”. This quote unlocks the wholeprofanity of the author’s subsequent arguments, whichfor political reasons undoubtedly, are even expressedas subheadings. For example, immediately after theabove quote, there are several sentences on “the an-nihilation of God’s Son”, “the vile hatred against the Sav-ior”. Then, the following text appears in bold letters: “Thefirst language of hatred in the world is the language ofthe Jewish leaders” /!/ I would like to present severalmore quotations that give away Volen Siderov’s edu-cational deficits and creative crisis. “We should beaware,” writes Volen, “that we are not talking about a

OBEKTIV 2

specific ethnic group, but about communities unitedby an elitist, anti-human and anti-divine doctrine, aimedat ruling the world by assuming control of its materialriches”. And a final quote: “This community has trans-formed itself through the ages from Pharisees andSadducees, to different oligarchic circles, which eventoday meet periodically in luxury resorts to decide whoand how to have control on the markets, the resourcesand the fate of millions around the world”.

I am greatly embarrassed that I had to present theabove “bullshit” to the readers of Obektiv. The reasonwhy I did it is because of the disturbing circumstancethat Volen Siderov’s anti-Semitic propaganda passesthrough the Holy Scriptures. In the beginning of the 21st

century, reading the Bible in the manner of a newbornparty activist is comparable only to the Marxist andLeninist methods used at Sofia University, where the To-rah, the Gospels and the Koran were all called (if evermentioned!) “literary texts”. “Texts” written by a humanhand and not “inspired by God”. Naturally, the commu-

nist professors could use the “divine discourse”of the Old Testament as a basis for their argu-ments about the human exploitation in theRoman Empire, the blood-thirsty and aggres-sive character of the first Jewish kingdoms, aswell as on the mind-blowing vice in Egypt, ac-companied by profligacy, greed, and thecruel inequality of women. I am afraid thatsome Bulgarian university professors1 stillpresent the sacred narratives in THIS way. Ialso suspect that the categories that Philo ofAlexandria2 spoke about while interpretingthese narratives have remained forever un-known to this type of “scientists”, remnantsof the Marxist-Leninist propaganda. I eventhink that quite a few professors, for example,

at the Center for Eastern Languages and Cultures orthe above-mentioned Theological Department,hardly know the teachings of the medieval philoso-pher Joachim of Fiore. I would only point out thatJoachim represents a decisive turn3 in medieval Bibleexegesis, mostly on account of modifying andsupplementing the many meanings of the Scriptures(the most classical one, exemplified by Dante, forinstance, is the so-called theory of the four mean-ings - literal, moral, allegorical and anagogic).

But let me go back to Siderov’s writing impulses inthe article published on the eve of Christmas. Be-sides the repulsive rhetoric against the Jews and thepurposefully stupid “interpretation” of the Bible, Volenhas added something else as well. By reproachingen passant the Draft European Constitution for re-ferring in its Preamble to abstract “humanist but notChristian principles”, he broaches another favoritetopic for the pseudo-educated patriots - theThracians. Just like the late Lyudmila Zhivkova andAlexander Fol, and the prolific historian BozhidarDimitrov, Volen Siderov considers it especially impor-tant “to remind” the readers of Ataka about the keyrole of Constantine the Great in the development ofChristianity. Siderov writes in bold letters once again:“Constantine the Great is of Thracian-Bulgarian ori-gin he was born in Nish. He legitimated Christianityand gave it a spur as a state religion for the ages tocome. Byzantium (41 of whose 87 emperors were ofThracian-Bulgarian origin) became the state of theconquering Christian faith...,” etc. The stupidity of theauthor of this article is amazing. Reading the pro-phetic discourse without its cosmic and divine whole-ness, extracting literal comments from the Gospelsin order to shower the readers with primitive anti-Ju-daism is such an insult to any true believer that thesemi-educated, self-centered Volen Siderov couldnever imagine. The concoction of ravings that “to-day the war against Christ is waged mainly againstOrthodox Christianity”, about the European Consti-tution which was “drafted in order to get the anti-European country Turkey in [the EU]”, about theThracians, proto-Bulgarians, the oligarchic interestsof the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, plus (forsome flavor) demonization of the Internet for “pro-claiming” the Savior doctrine obsolete, is a manifes-tation of more than a diagnosis. A diagnosis for thewriting and political attempts of someone who rarelyreads, is an ignorant and poorly educated person,mixing tabloids with the Holy Scriptures, who is intoxi-cated and obsessed with some past Bulgarian gran-deur, while at the same time - unfortunately - hasassumed the second place in the party ratings ofmodern political life.

1 Here, I do not refer to professors at the Sofia University, such asMilena Kirova and her study The Biblical Woman, or Dr. MoniAlamalech of the New Bulgarian University and his book Colorand Speech.2 The Jewish-Greek philosopher Philo of Alexandria /d. 50 AD/came up with the hypothesis that Genesis, Exodus and all theremaining books of the Torah needed to be read in two ways -realistic and theological. A sufficient number of Old Testamenttexts have been accumulated after him, which include herme-neutic logic that excludes a “human” explanation for the divinewholeness of the holy scrolls.

3 See After Christianity, Gianni Vatimo, Kritika i humanizam,2006, p. 43.