Криминална хроника

Raycho Radilov: 40 years of journalistic activity, correspondent of Trud newspaper in Moscow, founder and editor of Trud Publishing House, Libra sign, editor of the book of Fr. Atanas Semerdzhiev "The experience is not subject to appeal". The book was published in 2004. from IC "Trud".

- Mr. Radulov, was it difficult to edit General Semerdzhiev's book? - I admit I went with a dose of bias towards the manuscript. The reason is that I don't have a good attitude towards memoirists, not memoirs. This is because in my time, the memoirists were looking to point out themselves - what heroes they are, and the time they talk about serves only as a background for them. - And?
- I don't know if Bulgaria has won with General Atanas Semerdzhiev, but I know that she has lost a great writer. I give an example: in the first part "The Sacrifice" he magnificently handled the word, something that few Bulgarian writers can. With a few strokes and the hero is in front of you - whole and alive. The ideals and romance of the time, the beginning and the end of World War II - this is the time when the whole world cultural community believes that something good can come out of socialism for humanity and hence the resistance to fascism, betrayed sincerely and faithfully. It's God's gift! His ability to portray, and with an unforced approach to his classmates, fellow partisans, even with his ideological opponents. He does not look at things in white and black and quite humanly refers to the then police, for example. He hardly dares to call anyone a traitor, even to his comrades who have been arrested and have not endured, he treats with respect and does not judge them.
- The book is over 600 pages, what else about it?
- The second part Atanas Semerdzhiev is titled "One General during the natured 45 years". This is the time of the construction of the Bulgarian army after 9.09.1944, the Warsaw Pact and our participation in the scheme. Here I will say that by making preliminary inquiries about the readability of the book, I was surprised, I admit, by the interest of our officers from the G.S. Rakovski Military Academy. It turned out that they used it as a textbook because they had much to learn from it about joint exercises with Warsaw Pact troops and about the exercises in general. For our officers, this book is a textbook and there are no abbreviations. "The Hot Beginning of the Transition" and "The Enchanted Circle" are the titles of the third and fourth parts. In them is written everything, I would say, that happened in Bulgaria after 10.11.1989. Here are the charges against him, his defense and his relationship to the changes and his participation as vice president and deputy of the republic.
- What were the difficulties for you as an editor?
- For an editor, the main difficulty is checking the facts, at any date, for example, but I must admit that Atanas Semerdzhiev is accurate to pedantry.
- What is your personal opinion and evaluation of the book?
- For me as a professional, the book "The experience is not subject to appeal" is one of the best memoir books today. And as immodest as my opinion is, he is as accurate as Winston Churchill in his 6 volumes of memoirs, which I had the honor of editing too. As for the man, I will say that he is extremely modest and has nothing to do with former and current greats who are in a hurry from the door to demonstrate some superiority to you there. I will tell you one more thing: for me he is a great patriot of Velingrad. The whole time I was working on the book, he was constantly talking to me and keeping me busy with Velingrad. And I admit, he was right. I will share with you that according to a European study, the best city to live in is Brussels. I have been in your city for ten days and I recognize that Velingrad is the good city to live in.
- Then your wish to the inhabitants of our good-for-living city?
May you, the people of Velingrad, be able to preserve this greenness that you have. And I hope you refrain from "tightening" your city, because your city is beautiful with the greenery, the space and the people.
Veska Bozhkova