11 Facts About Petar Mladenov

Petar Mladenov was the last leader of the Bulgarian People's Republic from 1989 to 1990, and briefly the first President of the Bulgarian Republic in 1990.

Petar Mladenov's father was an anti-fascist partisan killed in action in 1944.

Petar Mladenov served as the first secretary of the party's committee in Vidin Province from 1969 to 1971.

Petar Mladenov joined the Politburo and became foreign minister in 1971, serving in that position for 18 years.

Petar Mladenov, who had 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.

In October 1989, Petar Mladenov organized a 35-nation environmental conference and invited the Bulgarian NGO Ecoglasnost to participate.

Petar Mladenov's resignation letter was a scathing condemnation of Zhivkov's way of ruling the country.

Petar Mladenov called for multiparty elections by the spring of 1990.

Petar Mladenov resigned as President in July 1990 after allegedly suggesting the use of tanks against anti-government demonstration in December 1989, securing a place in history with the phrase 'The tanks had better come'.

Petar Mladenov did not run in the 1990 elections and largely retired from public life.

Petar Mladenov underwent a heart bypass in Houston in 1986, leaving him in frail health in the ensuing years.