The museum has an amazing collection of weaponry, including armor, aircraft, artillery, support vehicles, and small arms. There are several floors of uniforms and decorations, with all the displays well labeled in Bulgarian and English.
This Trabant, said to symbolize Bulgaria’s NATO aspirations, encapsulates my reaction to the museum’s armor display. Exhibited are tanks and aircraft which I recognize as French, German, and Soviet. On the display placards vehicles and aircraft have their country of origin listed, but the salient point is the period they were in service with the Bulgarian Army. Try as I might, when I looked at the Pkw IV I saw a Nazi tank, the T-34 a Soviet. The American perspective I brought to this was really evident.
I found the 20th Century narrative as interesting for what is not said as for what is said. Transitions, whether in 1944 or 1990, which in my mind are monumental, don’t figure in the military chronology. I was again reminded of the army of the DDR, which went from defending the nation from fascist imperialists to defending the nation from communist aggression overnight.
It is strange to realize that I know a number of Californians who can competently discuss the history and engineering of Soviet, German, and Italian small arms without being able to say anything about the 1912-13 Balkan Wars. These capitals have Military Museums, but the idea of there being Political Museums is as foreign as the idea that Americans would read a Labor Journal as opposed to a Wall Street Journal. The vast majority of us earn our living from our labor, not invested capital, and yet we think of investor interests as being our interests. We look at the 20th Century via military history, rather than the history of organized labor or intellectual history.
