Lone Red Poppy
A biography of Dimiter Blagoev
by Mercia MacDermott
£14.95 (+£1.50 p&p), 252 pages 32 illustrations, ISBN 978-1-907464-10-2
Mercia MacDermott’s latest book, Lone red poppy, is the first substantial and authoritative account in English of the life of Dimiter Blagoev, founder of the first marxist circle in Russia and of the Bulgarian Communist Party.
The book traces his personal and family story against the background of Bu
lgaria’s struggle for a popular sovereignty and the rising workers’ and revolutionary movements.
Mercia MacDermott reveals, with great insight and human detail, the personal, political and ideological life of this great revolutionary pioneer and in doing so makes a compelling case for the contemporary relevance of his guiding principles.
Mrecia McDermott is a leading authority on Bulgarian history, politics and culture, teaching there for sixteen years, both at the English Language High School in Sofia and at Sofia University, where she lectured on the Bulgarian revolutionary movement against Ottoman rule in Macedonia and Aegean Thrace.
From 1958 to 1973, she chaired the Society of Friendship with Bulgaria (now the British Bulgarian Society). An honorary citizen of Karlovo and Blagoevgrad, she is also the bearer of a number of Bulgarian state decorations. Her past titles include:
- A History of Bulgaria 1393–1885, Allen and Unwin, 1962;
- The Apostle of Freedom (A portrait of Vasil Levsky against a background of nineteenth-century Bulgaria), Allen and Unwin, 1967;
- Freedom or Death (the life of Gotsé Delchev), Journeyman Press, 1978;
- For Freedom and Perfection (the life of Yané Sandansky), Journeyman Press, 1988;
- Bulgarian Folk Customs, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 1998;
- Explore Green Men, Heart of Albion Press, 2003 and 2006
