Petar Dertliev, a former dissident who revived the Social Democratic Party after a decades-long ban by Bulgaria's communist regime, has died aged 84.
Dertliev was one of the founders and leaders of the anti-communist Union of Democratic Forces and member of the first freely elected post-communist parliament in 1990.
Born in 1916, Dertliev graduated from the University of Sofia's medical faculty and became an assistant professor there in 1943. During the 1930s, he was arrested several times because of his social democratic activities. In 1948, after communists had taken power in the country, he was arrested and given 10 years in prison for his political beliefs. After the fall of communism in 1989 he revived the Social Democratic Party and was its leader until his death.
''An absolute idealist is gone,'' President Petar Stoyanov said. ''His youth was crushed by the communist labour camps, but no-one could crush his spirit.''
Dertliev is survived by his wife and two daughters.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article