The British Telegraph published an open letter of a group of British and Bulgarian intellectuals who feel outraged by the smear campaign against Bulgarian immigrants. File photo
An open letter signed by a group of British and Bulgarian intellectuals has been published by the British Telegraph in which the authors state they feel offended by the negative image of Bulgaria in recent publications.
The negative campaign against Bulgarians and Romanians is persisting in Old Albion over fears of huge influx of them after the opening the labor market at the beginning of 2014.
Below is the full text of the letter:
Bulgarians in Britain
SIR – As a counterpoint to the tide of ill-researched information about potential Bulgarian migration, we would like to draw attention to the significant contribution to society that those Bulgarians who already live here make.
They work as lawyers, bankers, accountants, doctors and nurses, dentists, lecturers, classical musicians, in travel, wine and retail businesses, and as builders, decorators and cleaners.
Most acquired their skills in Bulgaria by the Bulgarian education and training system. Britain has, therefore, benefited from talented, hard-working people without the expense of training them.
No research about the number of unskilled and unemployed Bulgarians who may travel to Britain in pursuit of benefits can be accurate.
To his surprise, on visiting the poorest Roma district of Sofia and telling people what advantages they would find on moving to Britain, Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, discovered they had no wish to leave.
Just as sensible-thinking British people would not wish to be known for binge-drinking and offensively promiscuous behaviour, so too, hard-working and intelligent Bulgarians neither wish, nor deserve, to be portrayed as a nation of pickpockets and scroungers.
Dr Annie Kay
Chairman, British-Bulgarian Society
Michael Holman
Emeritus Professor of Russian and Slavonic Studies, University of Leeds
Ivan Stancioff
Former Ambassador to the Court of St James's
Richard Crampton
Emeritus Fellow, St Edmund Hall, Oxford
Dr Sonia Rouve-Ouvalieva
President, Ouvaliev Foundation
John Chapman
Professor of European Prehistory, Durham University
Dr Bisserka Gaydarska
Department of Archaeology, Durham University
Professor Anthony Harding
Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter
Dr Emilia Knight
Ognian Avgarski
Founder, Balkania Travel
John Osborne
Senior Master (retired), Marlborough College
Venera Bojkova
Classical pianist
Dr Duncan Brown
Political historian
Dr Boika Sokolova
Professor of Shakespeare Studies, University of Notre Dame in England
Professor Elliot Leader
Imperial College London
Dessislava Stefanova
Leader of London Bulgarian Choir
Mirella Koleva
Doctoral student
Dr Yana Proykova
Former Senior Lecturer in Physics, University of Portsmouth
Margarit Todorov