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Petar Mladenov

Petar Toshev Mladenov
Петър Тошев Младенов
Petar Mladenov 1978.jpg
1st President of Bulgaria
In office
3 April 1990 – 6 July 1990
Prime Minister Andrey Lukanov
Preceded by Himself as Chairman of the State Council
Succeeded by Stanko Todorov (Acting)
Chairman of the State Council of Bulgaria
In office
17 November 1989 – 3 April 1990
Preceded by Todor Zhivkov
Succeeded by Himself as President
General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party
In office
10 November 1989 – 2 February 1990
Preceded by Todor Zhivkov
Succeeded by End of Communist rule
Foreign Minister of Bulgaria
In office
13 December 1971 – 24 October 1989
President Todor Zhivkov
Preceded by Ivan Hristov Bashev
Succeeded by Boiko Dimitrov
Personal details
Born (1936-08-22)22 August 1936
Toshevtsi, Vidin Province
Died 31 May 2000(2000-05-31) (aged 63)
Sofia
Political party Bulgarian Communist Party (1963-1990)
Bulgarian Socialist Party (1990-2000)
Spouse(s) Galia Mladenova
Children Tatyana

Petar Toshev Mladenov (Bulgarian: Петър Тошев Младенов) (22 August 1936 – 31 May 2000) was a Bulgarian communist diplomat and politician. He was the last Communist leader of Bulgaria from 1989 to 1990, and briefly the first President of democratic Bulgaria in 1990.

Mladenov was born to a peasant family in the village of Toshevtsi, Vidin Province on 22 August 1936. His father was an anti-fascist partisan killed in action in 1944. He graduated from a military school, entered Sofia State University, and graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 1963. Soon afterward, he joined the Bulgarian Communist Party.

Mladenov served as the first secretary of the party's committee in Vidin Province from 1969 to 1971. He joined the Politburo and became foreign minister in 1971, serving in that position for 18 years. In the same year, he was elected to the National Assembly. He was one of the closest associates to longtime leader Todor Zhivkov.

During the 1980s, he became attracted to Mikhail Gorbachev's reform efforts. He saw a chance to change Bulgaria's image as one of the most unreformed countries in the Soviet bloc. In May 1989, Zhivkov ordered the expulsion of most of Bulgaria's ethnic Turks. This brought near-unanimous international condemnation. Mladenov, who'd had to field most of the international complaints, was particularly upset because the expulsion violated an international human rights accord he'd signed four months earlier.


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