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THE ANCIENT FREE AND ACCEPTED MASONS
IN BULGARIA
founded on September 20, 1997

Discourse

Three motives for knowledge by Georgi Rakovski, which have the power to build a better society even today

In the text of the pamphlet "Remigration to Russia", the author Sabi Stoykov Popovich, better known as Georgi Rakovski, sharply criticizes the false promises trying to attract Bulgarian settlers from northwestern Bulgaria. He makes a historical overview of Bulgarian-Russian relations from the time of Svetoslav Igorevich and concludes that the enslavement of Bulgaria was a permanent Russian goal, which in his time was carried out with the agreement and cooperation of the Ottoman authorities. Naturally, after the publication of this pamphlet and his articles on Russian politics, Rakovsky was declared persona non grata and banned from traveling to and residing in Russia. This text of Rakovsky reaches us through the publication of Zahari Stoyanov from 1886, who in a short introduction not only gives details about her and Rakovsky, but also tells about the politics conducted in the next 25 years that followed the banned pamphlet, reaching the time of The union of the Principality of Bulgaria with Eastern Rumelia. In 1922, Prof. Mihail Arnaudov published it for the third time.
 
In Rakovski's work, three motifs are hidden between the lines of the text, which make an impression. They can serve as a parallel even for the situation of our country today and be used as a cornerstone around which to build a better society. In the first place is the reason for the need for good education, because it is the backbone of public prosperity. In second place is the honoring of the covenant of our great-grandfathers, and in the last, but not the least important place – that a person should not sell himself, but be hardworking, truly appreciating what he has and making efforts to build on it.
 
Education is important because it enables more informed decisions to be made based on rationality rather than emotion. Rakovski notes in his other works how incorrect it is for Bulgarians to be cold-blooded towards public education. Revealing the geographical features of the land that the Bulgarians own and inhabit, compared to the land that is offered to them in exchange for their emigration, the revolutionary makes a good enough assessment of what the chances of success of such an undertaking are, namely - negligible. There is no rationality in exchanging the fertile Bulgarian land for the harsh conditions of the Russian geographical reality. Historically speaking, the Russian rulers have sought to impose their authority over the state entities of the Bulgarians, and this process has not been interrupted. Notwithstanding, for example, that it was we who gave them the script they use.
 
Honoring the blood shed for every inch of land and built by our forefathers should not be forgotten or disrespected. "A nation without history is morally dead," wrote Subi Popovic in 1860. Our location is in the favorable civilizational conditions where the ancient states arose, namely between 20 and 45 north parallel, as noted by the ancient Greek philosophers Parmenides and Aristotle. The role of geography has occupied the minds of great scientists throughout the ages. The Arab philosopher, Ibn Khaldun, considered the founder of demography, shared ancient views on the role of climate. He is a supporter of the idea of ​​the superiority of the temperate climate and of the idea of ​​the influence of social responsibility (asabiyyah) with an emphasis on unity, group consciousness and a sense of shared purpose and social cohesion to build a healthy society. Authors with geopolitical ideas, regardless of the absence of this exact term at that time, were philosophers, and some of them also Freemasons - Charles de Montesquieu, Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jean-Baptiste le Ron d'Alembert and Julien Auffray de La Meters. Their influence on geographical determinism contributed to the emergence of geopolitical science, considered the science of elites.
 
Regarding the third motive in Rakovski's work, about the fact that one should not sell oneself for "quick and easy" physical goods, hundreds of pages can and have been written. A classic example is the play designated as a masterpiece - "Faust" by the German philosopher and freemason Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. With this act, the balance between the material and the spiritual is most often disturbed, with which a dedicated brother like Georgi Rakovski is well enough acquainted to try to warn the Bulgarians about this trap.
 
Conclusion
 
As some historians have noted - knowledge is rarely lost, it can pass through a generation like a book that is never read, but this mistake is sooner or later corrected by some next generation. Let it be us.
 
 
 
S.R.