The Bulgarian 1989

T he article treats the main processes and events constituting the ‘long 1989’ in Bulgaria. It discusses the internal and international environments at the time, the growing ten- sions in the economic, social, political, and ethnic spheres as well as the activities of the main actors from both the ruling Communist Party elite with its internal divisions (ultimately leading to an intra-party coup) and the circles standing in various degrees of opposition to the official line. Both earlier manifestations of dissent in the country and the activities of the dissident organisations of the late 1980s are examined. Special attention is paid to the two main trends in Bulgarian dissidence ‒ the one striving for a radical change of the system and the other aspiring to ‘humanise’ the existing order, as attitudes ensuing from the former or the latter would be among the underlying fac- tors behind Bulgaria’s choice of the way for its future development.