As I was reflecting upon the hypocrisy and unsurprising ineffectiveness of the “No Kings” protests, I happened to pass by the site of the former mausoleum of the first communist ruler of Bulgaria, Georgi Dimitrov. Some have aptly described him as “the lion of Leipzig, who turned into the sheep of Moscow.” He successfully defended himself during the Leipzig fire trial in 1933, when the Nazi regime falsely accused him of plotting to burn the Reichstag building.
However, Georgi Dimitrov was also a faithful Komintern agent and subsequently assisted the Soviet Union in establishing a brutal communist regime in Bulgaria in September of 1944. Some historians speculate that he may have experienced a change of heart in the late 1940s in connection with Tito’s plans for a Balkan Federation. Bulgaria was considered the most loyal Soviet satellite, and any attempt to escape Soviet control was to be punished. Dimitrov died under mysterious circumstances in a sanatorium near Moscow, following a visit to Stalin, before he could initiate a policy change. He was then mummified and placed in a mausoleum in the center of Sofia, across from the former Royal Palace.
Even as children, we were struck by the stark contrast between the stylish, yet modest, Palace building and the gaudy, monumental structure of the somber mausoleum. The communists expelled the members of the royal family and murdered some of them after usurping power. For decades, the Palace (shown below) has been used as an ethnographic museum and an art gallery.
During communist rule, which lasted 45 years, young children from all over Bulgaria were forced to visit the mausoleum and worship “the mummy.” My elementary school brought me there at least twice before I turned ten. Needless to say, being forced to admire a mummified corpse in a glass enclosure was a rather traumatic experience for small children.
In a fascinating historical novel titled Mausoleum, the acclaimed Paris-based Bulgarian writer Rouja Lazarova observed:
Repetition was the essence of this regime; it was everywhere, in individual stories, in the uniform, in the rhythm of the military march that we integrated from a very young age, in the chanting of slogans. But the most carefully orchestrated and maintained rehearsal eventually runs out. My life was a repetition of my mother’s, a repetition of poor quality. When, at the age of eight, I descended for the first time into the wet corridors of the Mausoleum, the discipline was less strict. I was certainly impressed by these remains in its baroque décor, but the smell of formaldehyde had become too strong for anyone to believe in the miracle of socialism.
In the late 1980s, most people no longer believed the inane propaganda. Yet, we did not dare dream that the end of the regime was near. The Fall of the Berlin Wall surprised many of us and brought a sense of contagious courage and triumphant enthusiasm. I was then in my last year of high school and yearned to contribute, albeit in a small personal way, to restoring liberty and Western values.
After communism was swiftly and peacefully overthrown in most of Eastern Europe, the mausoleum of Sofia was destroyed, and the corpse of its occupant was given proper burial.
It is not conservatives who worship political leaders and wish to turn them into kings. Conservatives are typically common-sense people who believe in limited government. Totalitarian socialists, as well as the modern left, however, desire total control and unlimited power.
Today, the site of the former mausoleum features a surreal inscription in the style of Yogi Berra’s “déjà vu all over again.” The enigmatic inscription, which is part of a modern art installation, reads: “Between the past that is on its way to happen and the future that has already been.”
Communist mausolea still exist in Russia, China, Vietnam, and North Korea. In contrast, American presidents choose to build libraries after the end of their terms. Trump’s presidency is currently our strongest hope that the personality cult and total control desired by our enemies will not be part of the West’s future.
Nora D. Clinton is a Research Scholar at the Legal Insurrection Foundation. She was born and raised in Sofia, Bulgaria. She holds a PhD in Classics and has published extensively on ancient documents on stone. In 2020, she authored the popular memoir Quarantine Reflections Across Two Worlds. Nora is a co-founder of two partner charities dedicated to academic cooperation and American values. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and son.
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