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Sofia Pride: How and why Bulgaria legalised homosexuality in the 1960s - Emerging Europe

The National Musical Theatre organised a march in the capital to demonstrate against this unfair treatment. During the event, which has been described by some as Bulgaria’s first-ever Pride parade, the men wore extravagant clothing, some dressed as women, and alongside some Sofia locals, marched from the city’s Central Mineral Baths to Gorna Banya, one of the best districts of the city, at the time largely reserved for the communist elite.

Needless to say, the Bulgarian Communist Party was not best pleased with this show of free will and accused the men of “undisguised manifestation against the people’s power”. The Minister of Interior at the time, Diko Dikov, threatened them: “We will destroy all who are like you.”

The 1963 march led to a group trial year later of 26 men for practicing homosexuality, many of whom were high profile individuals, including actor Georgi Partsalev, pop singer Emil Dimitrov and his rumoured partner, songwriter Vasil Andreev, poet and translator Borislav Georgiev, and other actors, film directors, and dancers – all of whom were in the public eye.