Todor Tokin: BNR's Foreign Broadcasts was not a channel of communist ideology, on the contrary!

We had an extremely varied and rich programme in the English-language section, the journalist recalls

published on 2/16/25 7:15 AM

At various times in its existence, the BNR's Directorate of Foreign Language Broadcasts, now known as Radio Bulgaria, the multimedia multilingual platform of Bulgarian National Radio, was more than just a workplace for a number of popular journalists. Todor Tokin was one of them. A long-time journalist with the Trud newspaper, he dedicated 15 years of his active journalistic career to the Central Information Service, as Radio Bulgaria's reporting team was called, and to the English-language editorial team.

He joined the radio in 1977 at the age of 26 and almost immediately began to cover developments in the Politics section.

"In 1989 I returned from Nigeria (where he had been working as a translator for Technoexportstroy - ed.) and immediately started covering political events related to the Greens, the "Ekoglasnost" movement and various other committees. I had the opportunity to meet with the entire opposition, and I vividly remember the highly politicised atmosphere during the "round table" discussions.

Despite its unique nature as the only media outlet providing diverse and rich information about and for Bulgaria in Bulgarian and 10 other foreign languages, the existence of Radio Bulgaria has often been questioned over the years.

"It was a turbulent life, and I would not say that we were a transmitter of any communist ideology - on the contrary! We were broadcasting for civilised, democratic countries, which could hardly understand what kind of a post this 'First Secretary of the Central Committee' was, and that is why Comrade Zhivkov was announced as 'President of Bulgaria', without much explanation".

Memories of the difficulties that Radio Bulgaria has faced in the past are not the only ones that the journalist keeps and kindly shares with us. He tells us about his work at the Central Information Service (CIS):

"What was typical at the time was that each of our colleagues had their own area of responsibility, and the CIS also collaborated with a number of external contributors who sent us commentaries, analyses, or gave interviews."

In addition, we had various multi-topic programs. One of them was Youth Journal, hosted by Stoyan Kirchev – Jacky. He worked in the French section of the African desk, but also occasionally hosted the Musical Ladder programme. Thanks to him, material on bands like Shturcite, Signal and FSB found its way into the programme. Whenever a new band emerged, he would immediately arrange an interview with them.

Since 1984, Todor Tokin had also worked in the English editorial office of the Foreign Broadcasts, and he pointed out that the translator-announcers in the foreign-language sections were "super professionals".

"We had a very rich programme," he recalls. - Apart from the news and commentaries of the day, there was a weekly show called Top of Bulgarian pops, in which we broadcast the 10 most popular Bulgarian songs. It was presented by the musician Theodor Shishmanov - a long-time soloist in the band Tonika SV.

The singer Georgi Minchev recorded the same show in French. Ivan Avuski, then head of the French editorial department, immediately accepted and approved the idea.

The English editorial office also had a show dedicated to radio enthusiasts hosted by Dimitar Petrov. He was the only one who truly understood what he was talking about, yet the show had an impressive number of listeners who sent in countless letters."

Todor Tokin recalls the Radio Bulgaria listener clubs around the world. He says that the most active were in Australia and the US - especially in Pittsburgh and Chicago. Many members were Bulgarian expatriates, but not exclusively. He also recalls several other programmes produced by the English Service team at Radio Bulgaria.

"One of our most popular programmes was Flipping Through the Pages, where we invited various Bulgarian poets. One of them was Boris Hristov, before he published his poetry collection Evening Trumpet. We also produced radio adaptations of well-known Bulgarian novels, such as (Ivan Vazov's - ed.) Under the Yoke."

The journalist left Radio Bulgaria in 1992 when he was invited to join the team of the Trud Daily by a former classmate who was then deputy editor-in-chief of the newspaper. Since then, his career has been entirely in the print media, where he has consistently covered the country's political landscape. He firmly believes that the world is currently in a state of 'great anticipation,' shaped by the policies of newly elected US President Donald Trump and the question of when and how the war in Ukraine will come to an end.