September 9 marks 73 years since one of the most controversial dates in Bulgaria’s modern history. On that day in 1944 the Fatherland Front led by PM Kimon Georgiev seized political power in Bulgaria.

Soon after that the commonest regime took over and the communist party stood at the helm of the country until November 1989.

September 9 is celebrated today by the Bulgarian Socialist Party and various communist formations, while the centrist and right-minded parties see the date as the beginning of communist outrage.

entry of Soviet troops into the country during World War II. September 9 was Bulgaria's national holiday until 1989 when the Communist regime collapsed.

The Bulgarian Socialist Party, BSP, successor of the Bulgarian Communist Party, won the country's first free election and stayed in office by 1991.

The election in December 1994 returned the BSP to power with an absolute majority, but the political fallout from a severe economic crisis in 1996-97 forced an early general election in April 1997, which was won by a UDF-led center-right coalition.

BSP returned to power in the parliamentary elections in 2005.

Interestingly, Bulgaria's anti-fascist uprising in 1944 has been named the most important event in the country for the past century by Bulgarians.