Bulgarian Tsar: the West is not in decline
Bulgaria has rarely been the master of its own fate. Throughout history, neighbouring powers have often succeeded in imposing their will upon it. Nevertheless, Bulgaria has endured. There are few who can attest this with greater authority than Simeon II, who reigned as Bulgaria’s last Tsar from 1943 to 1946 and returned, after five decades of communist-imposed exile, to be elected Prime Minister between 2001 and 2005. In a meeting at Vrana Palace in Sofia, the 86-year-old former monarch told me that Bulgaria has missed a chance to mediate between the West and Russia. Simeon inherited the throne from his father, the modest, self-effacing Tsar Boris III, who died under
