Bulgaria

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global war that was under way by 1939 and ended in 1945. It involved a vast majority of the... world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million people serving in military units. In a state of "total war", the major participants placed their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by significant events involving the mass death of civilians, including the Holocaust and the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare, it resulted in 50 million to over 70 million fatalities. These deaths make the war the deadliest conflict in human history. Although Japan was already at war with China in 1937, the world war is generally said to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany, and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and most of the countries of the British Empire and Commonwealth.
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The African, Mediterranean and Middle East theatre encompassed the interconnected naval, land, and air campaigns fought between the Allied and Axis... forces in the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and Africa. The fighting in this theatre lasted from 10 June 1940, when Italy entered World War II on the side of Germany, until 2 May 1945 when all Axis forces in Italy surrendered at the end of World War II in Europe. Fighting would, however, continue in Greece, where British troops had been dispatched to aid Greek government forces during the early stages of the Greek Civil War. In an effort to forge an Italian Empire – or as supporters called it, the New Roman Empire, Benito Mussolini ordered his forces to invade Ethiopia during October 1935. Within seven months the country had been overrun and an empire founded. Mussolini’s next target was Albania. In April 1939 Italian forces invaded the country, and within five days secured victory. Wanting to further expand his empire and to emulate the success of Germany, Italy entered the Second World War intending to capture territories in southern France, the Balkans, east and north Africa including the Suez Canal.
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The September Uprising was an armed insurgency staged in September 1923 by the Bulgarian Communist Party under Comintern pressure, as an attempt to... overthrow the Democratic Accord government of Bulgaria that had come to power with the coup d'état of June 9. Besides its communist base, the uprising was also supported by agrarians and anarchists. The uprising's goal was the "establishment of a government of workers and peasants" in Bulgaria, not the conversion of the country's socioeconomic system to communism. The Bulgarian Communist Party leaders took up a neutral position on the 9 June coup d'état and the subsequent June Uprising because it regarded what was happening in the country as "struggle for power between the urban and rural bourgeoisie". This position was provoked by the belief of the party's older leaders, headed by Dimitar Blagoev and Todor Lukanov, that there were no ripe conditions for a revolution in Bulgaria yet. At the same time, a number of party organizations in the country proclaimed their support for counteraction to the coup d'état, with some even joining the June Uprising.
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The Battle of Bucharest, also known as the Argeş-Neajlov Defensive Operation in Romania, was an important battle of the Romanian Campaign in... World War I, in which the Central Powers occupied the Romanian capital and forced the Romanian Government, as well as the remnants of the Romanian Army to retreat to Moldova and re-establish its capital at Iaşi. The sheer number of troops involved, as well as the large area of operations, make it one of the most complex battles fought on Romanian soil during the war. Bucharest was eventually liberated after the Central Powers' surrender in 1918.
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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO , also called the Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North... Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. NATO's headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium, one of the 28 member states across North America and Europe, the newest of which, Albania and Croatia, joined in April 2009. An additional 22 countries participate in NATO's Partnership for Peace, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programs. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the world's defence spending. For its first few years, NATO was not much more than a political association. However, the Korean War galvanized the member states, and an integrated military structure was built up under the direction of two U.S. supreme commanders. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, which formed in 1955.
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The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security,... economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace. The UN was founded in 1945 after World War II to replace the League of Nations, to stop wars between countries, and to provide a platform for dialogue. It contains multiple subsidiary organizations to carry out its missions. There are 193 member states, including every internationally recognised sovereign state in the world but Vatican City. From its offices around the world, the UN and its specialized agencies decide on substantive and administrative issues in regular meetings held throughout the year.
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The Zangger Committee, also known as the Nuclear Exporters Committee, sprang from Article III.2 of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear... Weapons which entered into force on March 5, 1970. Under the terms of Article III.2 International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards must be applied to nuclear exports. Between 1971 and 1974, a group of 15 nuclear supplier states held a series of informal meetings in Vienna chaired by Professor Claude Zangger of Switzerland. The group's objective was to reach a common understanding on: the definition of "equipment or material especially designed or prepared for the processing, use or production of special fissionable material;" and the conditions and procedures that would govern exports of such equipment or material in order to meet the obligations of Article III.2 on the basis of fair commercial competition. The group, which became known as the Zangger Committee, decided that it would be informal and that its decisions would not be legally binding upon its members.
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The Southeast European Cooperative Initiative, or the SECI, has been an initiative that, under the auspices of men like Erhard Busek and Richard... Schifter, has been successful in providing stability in an unstable region and has found support in international organizations and countries. As of 2009, the region has found confidence in its new stability and along with the help of the SECI, has created a Regional Co-operation Council , owned and run by the countries in Southeast Europe aimed at strengthening peace, democracy and the economy in the hopes that the newfound stability can be supported by those countries who not so long ago were the perpetuators of volatility. The SECI Regional Center Headquarters is located in Bucharest Romania. The Southeast European Cooperative Initiative was formed in 1996 under the guidance of then, Senior Director for Eastern Europe in the United States National Security Council, Richard Schifter.
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Tzvetana Maneva is a Bulgarian actress. She was born in Plovdiv and her artistic career started here. The eminent Bulgarian actress made her debut... in cinema in the 1960s and has appeared in more than 50 Bulgarian films. Her parents are Nadejda Maneva and Georgi Manev. Her sister is Maria Kolarova, née Maneva.
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Magdalena Maleeva is a Bulgarian former tennis player. She played on the WTA tour competing in singles and doubles, from April 1989 to June 2007.... Her best position in the WTA Tour was no. 4 between January 29 to February 4, 1996. Born in Sofia, Maleeva was the youngest of the three children of Yulia Berberyan and Georgi Maleev. Yulia, who came from a prominent Armenian family which found refuge in Bulgaria after the 1896 Armenian massacres in the Ottoman Empire, was one of the best Bulgarian tennis players in the 1960s. After she retired from professional tennis in the 1970s, Berberyan started on a coaching career. She trained all of her three daughters, Magdalena, Katerina and Manuela, each of whom eventually became WTA top six players. In 1988 Maleeva became the youngest ever national tennis champion of Bulgaria, at the age of 13 years and four months. She turned professional in 1989, reaching the final of her first professional tournament at ITF/Bari-ITA. In her Grand Slam debut at the French Open in 1990, she passed the qualifications and reached the third round.
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Neva Krysteva , born on August 2, 1946 in Sofia, Bulgaria, is the most notable Bulgarian organist and also professor of music, pedagogue and... composer. She was graduated in Moscow P. I. Tchaikovsky Conservatoire, majoring in organ and musicology. She also studied in Prague and Zürich with Prof. Jiří Rheinberger. Krysteva's career is separated in three general branches - organ performances, musicology and composition. In 1978 she has organized the first organ class in Bulgaria. Neva Krysteva has given many concerts throughout Europe and Asia. Her performing career in Bulgaria - her native country - starts in 1974, after the new pipe organ in Bulgaria Concert Hall in Sofia was installed. She has varied repertoire including Baroque and Romantic music as well as 20th-century works. Krysteva's compositions are in the sphere of organ, chamber and choral music.
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Antony Raijekov is an artist, composer and open culture activist from Bulgaria. Since 1997 he is producing mellow downtempo-style music which he... distributes under the creative commons license. Antony Raijekov is a young artist who works in the field of theater, music, audio-vision and contemporary interactive art. In 2001 he graduated from ‘Krastyo Sarafov National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts’, subject Drama Acting and after that graduated Drama directing also. He is co-founder and chief editor of open-culture.net web portal, dedicated to Creative Commons, open and free culture in Bulgaria, also he is co-founder and member of executive council of Open Projects Foundation . MUSIC Antony Raijekov has five releases: “Acid is Gone”, “VIEWS” , “Hammondsville” and “Point of View EP” and “ Sound Fish" @ disfish.com[disfish.com]. All his music and works are under Creative Commons licenses. He worked with Ventzislav Dikov on contemporary ethno-jazz album “Sounds Around You”.
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Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe.... Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. The Mediterranean Sea and Cyprus are to the south; the Aegean Sea is to the west; and the Black Sea is to the north. The Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles demarcate the boundary between East Thrace and Anatolia; they also separate Europe and Asia. Turkey is one of the six independent Turkic states. The vast majority of the population are Muslims. The country's official language is Turkish, whereas Kurdish and Zazaki languages are spoken by Kurds and Zazas, who constitute 18% of the population. Oghuz Turks began migrating into the area now called Turkey in the 11th century.
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Greece /ˈɡriːs/ , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas , is a country in Southern Europe, politically considered... part of Western Europe. Athens is the capital and the largest city in the country . Greece has land borders with Albania, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the east. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of mainland Greece, the Ionian Sea to the west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands , including Crete, the Dodecanese, the Cyclades, and the Ionian Islands among others. Eighty percent of Greece consists of mountains, of which Mount Olympus is the highest at 2,917 m . Modern Greece traces its roots to the civilization of ancient Greece, generally considered the cradle of Western civilization.
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Serbia /ˈsɜrbiə/, officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast... Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans. Serbia borders Hungary to the north; Romania and Bulgaria to the east; the Republic of Macedonia to the south; and Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro to the west; additionally, it borders Albania through Kosovo, whose status as part of Serbia is disputed. Serbia covers an area of 88,361 km and has a population of just over 7.1 million, while the capital and largest city is Belgrade. The arrival of the Serbs to the Balkans in the 7th century, established several states, eventually forming the Serbian Empire in the 14th century. By the 16th century, Serbia was conquered and occupied by the Ottoman Empire, at times interrupted by the Habsburgs. In the early 19th century the Serbian revolution re-established the country as the region's first constitutional monarchy, which subsequently expanded its territory and pioneered the abolition of feudalism in the Balkans.
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Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the... successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991. It became a member of the United Nations in 1993 but, as a result of a dispute with Greece over its name, it was admitted under the provisional reference of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, sometimes abbreviated as FYROM. A landlocked country, the Republic of Macedonia is bordered by Kosovo to the northwest, Serbia to the north, Bulgaria to the east, Greece to the south and Albania to the west. It constitutes approximately the northwestern half of the larger geographical region of Macedonia, which also comprises parts of Greece and Bulgaria. The country's capital is Skopje, with 506,926 inhabitants according to a 2002 census. Other cities include Bitola, Kumanovo, Prilep, Tetovo, Ohrid, Veles, Štip, Kočani, Gostivar and Strumica.
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