News Agency

The BTA was founded originally in 1898 in Sofia. It is the official news agency of the country and the sole source of both foreign and domestic news. It receives most of its foreign items from the Soviet Union news agency but also maintains exchange agreements with Reuters, Associated Press, and the Associated Foreign Press as well as a host of lesser known foreign news agencies, although it tends to be more discriminating in terms of the items selected from these sources.

In the 1960s the BTA had twenty-three correspondents posted throughout the nation, as well as foreign correspondents in Moscow, Peking, East Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Tirana, Belgrade, Ankara, Paris, Bonn, New York, Vienna, Cairo, and New Delhi. Correspondents are sent on special assignments to investigate news that is considered to be of interest to Bulgaria. Domestic news is reproduced in Russian, English, French, German, and Spanish, and international news is reproduced in Russian, English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian. In an average day the BTA receives approximately 800 foreign newspapers, magazines, and bulletins and itself produces over 125,000 words.

THEMES OF THE MEDIA

The predominant theme of the media remains the expression of friendship with the Soviet Union. In 1971 a leading member of the party's Central Committee informed members of the media that one of their primary functions was to champion the feelings of "fraternal love, trust, and gratitude" of the Bulgarian people for the "heroic Soviet people," at the same time demonstrating "clearly and convincingly the unbreakable ties linking our present and future with the present and future of the Soviet Union."

A second common theme of the current media deals with the continuing struggle between so-called bourgeois capitalism and socialism. The people are, on the one hand, warned of the invidiousness of capitalistic methods—"The veiled methods of ideological struggle applied on an even broader scale by contemporary imperialism requires greater vigilance from us...." On the other hand they are assured that socialism will ultimately prevail—"their [socialist] ideas make their way with insuperable force into the minds and hearts of working people all over the world, gain more and more new adherents, and become a powerful factor of social progress."

Another dichotomy that the media pose as a continuing theme is that of religion versus socialism. Bulgarian writers triumphantly proclaim that "religion as a component of the sociological structure of society for thousands of years gradually withers away at an even faster pace throughout the transition from capitalism to communism." Since one of the major aims of the government is to eliminate religious sentiment among the people, the public is from time to time assured that—according to the latest survey—only 35.5 percent of the population is considered religious or that the "Bulgarian people is one of the least religious in the world."

Another divisive force that is frequently posed by the media is national patriotism versus proletarian internationalism. Although internationalism is viewed as predominant, citizens are warned against feelings of bourgeois nationalism, since the "unity between internationalism and patriotism is of a relative character, and there is always the real possibility of dissension between them; they may even be placed into a position of mutual opposition." Somehow the conflict, according to the journal Filosofska Misal, is perceived as being resolved through a higher form of patriotism that is inextricably linked with love of the Soviet Union. Socialist patriotism is seen as a "qualitatively new, higher form of patriotism" as expressed in "love and gratitude toward the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union organically linked with love for Bulgaria."

In accordance with the media's constant expression of admiration for, and solidarity with, the Soviet Union, any issue that raises the question of conflicting loyalties between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Soviet Union is summarily dismissed with the reiteration of support for the Soviet Union. One journal warned the people of the dangers from the left in the form of the people of the PRC as well as from the right in the form of capitalist societies: "Contrary to all healthy logic, for years on end, the Chinese leadership has been waging hostile propaganda campaigns against the Soviet Union ... which are in no way inferior to the most malicious fabrications of bourgeois anti-Sovietism."

When the troops of the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968, Bulgaria once again rose to the Soviet Union's defense in complete justification of the invasion. The BTA cited a long list of workers, peasants, and intellectuals who were allegedly in favor of the action. Major newspapers such as Rabotnichesko Delo interpreted the event as symbolic of proletarian internationalism, and Zemedelsko Zname stated that "it is our supreme duty to resist the common enemy and not to allow anyone ever to tear away even one link from the chain of the socialist community." The Czechoslovak uprising itself, as reported by the Bulgarian press some months later, was interpreted as nationalistic and counterrevolutionary.