site.bta Poet and Playwright Stefan Tsanev Declines Culture Ministry's Highest Award

Poet and Playwright  Stefan Tsanev Declines Culture Ministry's Highest Award

Sofia, January 9 (BTA) - Prominent contemporary Bulgarian poet and playwright Stefan Tsanev has declined to receive the highest award of the Culture Ministry, the Golden Age, the writer himself said in a letter sent to outgoing Culture Minister Vezhdi Rashidov, which was made available to BTA.

"On January 6 the website of the Culture Ministry had a message that on January 10, after the end of the performance of my play "Trial against Bogomils" in the National Theatre, I would be awarded the highest distinction of the Culture Ministry, the Golden Age award, on the occasion of my 80th anniversary. I am grateful for the consideration but I refuse to accept the award," Tsanev writes.

The writer recalls that in the late 2016 Rashidov gave the same distinction to "one of the senior directors of the [former] State Security - the most sinister repressive institution of the former totalitarian regime".

The award was given to Dimiter Ivanov, a professor in the University of Library Science and IT. Ivanov is the last head of the Sixth Department of the State Security, the unit which has been considered the political police during the communist regime.

"The State Security is guilty of thousands of ruined destinies, many of which belonged to art persons. Awarding one of the institution's supreme heads with the highest distinction of the Culture Ministry, the Golden Age Award, is tantamount to official exoneration of this repressive institution and discourtesy to the memory and sufferings of its victims," Tsanev writes.