Bulgarian authorities have decided to open the Interior Ministry archives from one of the most turbulent periods in Bulgaria’s history – 1923-1944.

Interior Minister Tsvetanov, Chair of the State Archives Agency Prof. Georgi Bakalov, and Chair of the State Files Commission Evtin Kostadinov signed Tuesday an agreement regulating the procedure for the transfer of the archives from the Interior Ministry to the two specialized institutions.

Thus, by the end of 2010, all Interior files from the above-mentioned period will be transferred to the Sofia suburb of Bankya where they will be examined by the employees of the Files Commission and the Archives Agency.

The folders are expected to expose important historic information about the trial in 1934 of Bulgaria’s former communist dictator Todor Zhivkov (r. 1956-1989), and about his employment by the Interior Ministry before that, as well as about the trial of legendary Bulgarian poet Nikola Vaptsarov who was executed in 1943 for his resistance to the state regime.

“Even the most right-wing government of Bulgaria after 1989 did not take actions to declassify the files. I don’t want to be just another minister who does not obey the law. We have nothing to worry about from the exposing of the truth. We should close once and for all the page of speculations and dependence on secret information,” Interior Minister Tsvetanov declared.

He made it clear that all citizens who are interested will be granted free access to the files in question as had been stipulated in the law.

In 1923-1944, Bulgaria saw three state coups – two rightist ones in 1923 and 1934, and the leftist coup of September 9, 1944, spurred by the arrival of the Soviet Army, which established the 45-year communist regime in the country.

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