We Should Be Proud of Our History, Not Prisoners of It

Today, I am travelling to Obstina Thompson in Svoge Municipality, in the beautiful Iskar Gorge. I am taking part in a ceremony to mark the 70^th anniversary of the death of Major Frank Thompson, executed by the forces of the wartime, pro-Nazi government.

Thompson was a member of the British Communist Party. The partisans are of course linked with the Bulgarian Communist Party and in many people’s minds with the establishment in Bulgaria of a communist government during the Cold War. Why therefore should a British Ambassador, representing a country which is the pillar of the Euro-Atlantic alliance, remember his life and death today?

Frank Thompson was a student at Oxford University when the Second World War began. He joined the British Army and became part of the elite SOE – the Special Operations Executive. He saw service in North Africa, Syria, Iraq, Sicily, Serbia and Bulgaria. On 25 January, he was sent on a parachute landing mission to establish a link between the British staff and the Bulgarian partisans led by Slavcho Transki.

On 23 May, Thompson took part in the clash at the village of Batuliya between the Bulgarian Gendarmerie and the Second Sofia Brigade of National Liberation of the partisans. He was wounded by the gendarmerie forces, captured and executed by firing squad in the nearby village of Litakovo. He was 23 years old.

I am laying a wreath today at his grave in part because we should always remember our dead. In particular, we should remember the dead as a result of conflict of all countries, military and civilian. It reminds us that war should always be a last resort.

I am doing so too because in this week, when we have remembered the 70^th anniversary of the D-Day landings which began the liberation of the European continent from the evils of Nazi-ism, we should remember that Thompson and his Bulgarian comrades played a part in that liberation, no matter what followed.

And finally, I am doing so because we should accept our history for what it is: our history. Whether it is centuries or decades ago, our history is important in understanding where we have come from and why things are so. It should not then be allowed to predict our futures, still less to be a strait-jacket for our aspirations and beliefs.

We can respect the contribution that has been made, whilst resolving on a different course ourselves. We can be proud of our history, but should not be prisoners of our past.

Let me give the final word to Major Frank Thompson, in his poem….

Polliciti Meliora – Major Frank Thompson

As one who, gazing at a vista

Of beauty, sees the clouds close in,

And turns his back in sorrow, hearing

The thunderclouds begin.

So we, whose life was all before us,

Our hearts with sunlight filled,

Left in the hills our books and flowers,

Descended, and were killed.

Write on the stones no words of sadness –

Only the gladness due,

That we, who asked the most of living,

Knew how to give it too.