Glimpses of the History of Diplomatic Interpreting in Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary in the 1950s and 1960s

Abstract

This article is part of a larger research project into the history of diplomatic interpreting in Bulgaria in the period 1944–1970, compared with the Soviet Union, the USA, Romania, and Hungary. The research was triggered by two archival photographs related to the participation of Nikita Khrushchev, Todor Zhivkov, Gheorghe Georgiou-Dej and János Kadar in the 15th session of the UN General Assembly in September-October 1960. Information was drawn from a variety of sources, including memoirs of participants in these events, media publications, and declassified documents from the archives of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Politburo of the Bulgarian Communist Party Central Committee, the State Department, and the FBI, as well as preserved photographs and documentaries in Bulgarian and foreign archives. In various contexts, high level interpretation was provided by professional interpreters (Veselin Izmirliev, Viktor Sukhodrev), diplomats (Petar Vutov, Silviu Brucan, Karoly Erdelyi) and journalists (Stela Avishai). Veselin Izmirliev’s activity as a diplomatic interpreter is not widely known. One of the aims of the text is to partly fill this gap by presenting archival documents, photographs and videos that show this aspect of his multifaceted activity in the context of the general development of diplomatic interpreting at the time.