2024-05-09 01:05:10
“Christ is risen! On Holy Saturday, our beloved mother, sister and grandmother Mariyana Altkova left us! The pilgrimage in her honor will be performed on 11.05 at 2:00 p.m. in the church of Saint Sedmochiselnitsi. From the family”.
A message with this text shortly after 10 p.m. was received on May 7 by friends from a subscriber named “Tyra” – this is how the wife of one of the most impressive politicians after November 10, Dragomir Draganov, had registered herself on Viber in recent years.
Marijana Altkova was the real equal half of the professor of new and modern history at Sofia University.
The man from Pleven, born in 1948, was among the most colorful Bulgarian politicians who appeared at the beginning of the long transition.
Shortly before 1989, he taught the history of the Slavic peoples at the Autonomous University of Madrid. Somewhere from that period, something Spanish had remained in Mariana, who is a graduate archaeologist – in the colors she loved, in the way she dressed, in her free communication. She is like that in one of the last photos that her son Jasen provided us.
The professor husband entered politics as a left-wing deputy in the Great National Assembly, but the Draganov family’s entourage did not obey strict party lines.
Stefan Danailov and his wife Maria, Solomon Passi, Maxim Minchev, Petar Beron, Petar Dertliev, Georgi Pirinski used to gather in their yard in Boyana, today surrounded by expensive properties. And Zhelyu Zhelev, with whom Drago argued, but also deeply respected.
And if the center of these long Sunday lunches on the grass was Prof. Draganov, a favorite author of “24 hours”, then the heart of the party was Marijana. The right side of this family, finding the balance with the left politician – always argued with him, but admitted when Drago was right. And he was the unusual left-wing politician – one of the founders of the Atlantic Club in Bulgaria, dialogic, different.
He was the first to take out the transcript, which proved that Todor Zhivkov wanted Bulgaria to become the 16th republic of the USSR. He left the BSP and decided that the strength of the left would be in the new Left, but he realized that this was not the right direction either.
Exactly 10 years ago, Marijana wrote a book – an emotional travelogue about China while seeking treatment for a family member there.
“101 TOPICS ABOUT CHINA AS SEEN FROM MY WINDOW” was actually just as many topics from the various life of this country.
Both Mariana and Drago left this world on great holidays – he in his dream before New Year on December 30, 2019, and she 5 years after him on Great Saturday before Easter.
She died literally in a month from the most insidious disease.
Marianna discreetly left the stage after the professor’s death. But he kept his leading role for their two children – Yana and Yasen.
From “24 hours” – condolences for their loss of mother and friend.