Day newspaper of May 26, 1875, published the news that over 20 thousand signatures were collected in India in support of the demand to have Indian deputies in the British Parliament. In the years to the Liberation of Bulgaria the Bulgarian press kept informing its readers of the situation in India, of the debates in the British Parliament on this issue, published reports from the European press.

The events which took place in Bulgaria at the end of the 19th and beginning of 20th c. focused the Bulgarians’ attention on the problems of restoring the Bulgarian state and the national unity, but they did not loose sight of Indian culture, ancient and contemporary. Indicative of this is the great interest of the Bulgarians in the work of the Indian writer Rabindranat Tagor. After 1913, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his “Gitanjali”, his name frequented the pages of Bulgarian literary criticism and the Bulgarian press. The interest in his work and personality grew like an avalanche in 1826 when Tagor visited Bulgaria at the invitation of the House of Press and Arts. He stayed two days in Sofia, where he had meetings with the Bulgarian public and intellectuals. The writer traveled with his son, his daughter-in-law, his granddaughter and the Mahalanobish couple, who later in their memoirs described the cordial reception in Sofia when they arrived by train from Belgrade. A welcoming delegation, including the chairman of the Bulgarian Pen Club Prof. Ivan D. Shishmanov, awaited them outside the border – at the Tsaribrod station. The guests were very surprised when later, at Dragoman railway station, in Bulgarian territory, they were met by a crowd of people. All newspapers carried the news of Rabindranat Tagor’s arrival. In his honor the university and schools in Bulgaria were closed on this day. When in the late afternoon the guest arrived to Sofia the railway station was full of people, who kept streaming from the central Maria Louisa Blvd.

On November 17, 1926, Tagor delivered a lecture on Contemporary Art in the hall of the Free Theatre in Sofia. His second public lecture, My Life, was on the next day in the National Theatre. Tagor read excerpts from “Gitanjali” and “The Gardener”. He visited the St. Alexander Nevski temple, the ethnographic museum, art exhibitions and accepted the invitation for trips to the foothills of Vitosha Mountains – to Vladaya, Boyana and Dragalevtsi. The writer was in contact with Bulgarians even before he visited the country. He was a friend of the Bulgarian artist Boris Georgiev, who painted his portrait in Rome the same year.

The end of the Second World War marked the beginning of interstate relations between Bulgaria and India. The Indian people celebrated when on January 22, 1947, the Constituent Assembly voted the proclamation of India’s independence. At the same time, the peace negotiations which Bulgaria led in Paris entered their final phase. On January 23, 1947, the official newspaper Rabotnichesko Delo published the news of the historical event in India under the title of “The Indian National Assembly voted Neru’s motion India to be proclaimed an independent and sovereign republic”. A little later another Bulgarian newspaper, Zemedelsko Zname acquainted its readers with the program of the new republic in an article with a rather long heading: “The message of Pandit Neru to the Indian people. The program of independent India. A fateful moment for India, Asia and the world”. In its issue of August 15, 1947, the newspaper People described in detail the events and changes in India, as well as the celebrations in New Delhi, which were restricted to two days so that people could go about their business again. The same year Balkan Review magazine published a feature on India in two consecutive issues. It was entitled “The white book of India and the development of the Indian question” and treated issues of the latest Indian history. It described the convening of the Constituent Assembly on September 6, 1946, and the events from February to August 1947.

Soon after these events new Bulgarian books about India appeared. In 1948 came out the book of Lyuben Meshnikov about the nature, economy and population of India as a country which gave birth to one of the oldest cultures in the history of humankind. Several years later the translated book of the Russian author A. M. Dyakov “India after the First World War” was published. From the beginning of the 1950s ever more Bulgarians looked upon India not only as an exotic country. In 1954 A. I. Hadjiolov’s article “Science in India” came out, presenting the country in a new aspect. The first steps of scientific cooperation were also made. Delegations of Bulgarian scientists visited India and got acquainted with the development of science, indicating that it can also be called a homeland of constructive thought.

The negotiations for establishing diplomatic relations between Bulgaria and India started in 1954 at the initiative of the Bulgarian government. They were conducted in Moscow between the ambassadors of the two countries. Within the same year agreement was reached to establish diplomatic relations and exchange diplomatic representatives, which was announced in the Bulgarian and the Indian press in December. Bulgaria opened its legation in New Delhi in the early 1955. Dr. Petar Vutov was appointed as the first minister plenipotentiary of Bulgaria to India and he presented his letters of credence on April 23 the same year. India accredited as its first minister plenipotentiary to Bulgaria its minister plenipotentiary seated in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, Radjevar Dayal, who presented his credentials in Sofia on July 18, 1955.

The following year, 1956 saw the beginning of the interstate cultural relations with the Ministry of Culture of India, the Indian Academy of Sciences, the Indian Institute of Statistics and other central institutes and bodies. Scientific exchange was enhanced. In 1956 Dr. Sarvapali Radhakrishnan was pronounced honorary doctor of St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia. During his visit to Bulgaria the Indian Minister of Research and Culture Humayun Kabur delivered a lecture at Sofia University on the life and work of Rabindranat Tagor and opened a permanent Indian corner at the Ethnographic Museum in Sofia. In 1956 an Indian national art exhibition was put on in Sofia, and in 1960 a Bulgarian art exhibition in India.

In March 1961 a joint communique was published, announcing that Bulgaria and India have reached an agreement to upgrade their diplomatic representations to the rank of embassies. Until 1964 the seat of the Indian minister plenipotentiary accredited to Bulgaria was in Belgrade, and from 1964 to 1970 – in Bucharest. In 1970 India opened its embassy in Sofia and appointed ambassador Gopal Singh.

Cooperation in the cultural sphere and information exchange continued. In 1972 an agreement was signed between the Committee for Radio and Television at the Council of Ministers of India and the respective Bulgarian institutions. “Anthology of Bulgarian Poetry” was published in India. The Indian writer Amrita Pritam dedicated to Bulgaria one of her novels, “Room No 1”. She translated Bulgarian folk songs and presented in India Bulgarian classic writers and poets such as Yordan Yovkov and Dora Gabe.

In 1979 Bulgaria celebrated the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with India. The then Indian ambassador in Sofia, Shailin Jai gave a special reception on this occasion. The Bulgarian press marked with due attention also the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1984.

Ever more often the words of Indira Gandhi that the Indian-Bulgarian contacts are “something more than purely utilitarian” were quoted. Bulgarian literature was enriched with new translations of Mahatma Gandhi and texts from the classical Indian philosophy.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of India’s independence, on March 6-7, 1997, at the official hall of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences there was a conference on the topic of “India in Bulgarian science”, organized by the Center of Eastern Languages at Sofia University, the Embassy of Republic of India in Sofia, and the “Friends of India” Club. The chairperson of the club, Prof. Dr. Vera Mutafchieva opened the scientific conference with a speech, underlining that India has its enthusiastic friends in Bulgaria and “is present as a multifaceted theme in the cultural life of our country”. These words are actually valid for all spheres of life, where there are already established relations between Bulgaria and India.

Stoyan Raichevsky