“Give me back my country.” The iconic remark of Todor Zhivkov’s grandson – Todor Ivanov Slavkov, during his participation in the reality show “Big Brother”, initially managed to anger me. When I thought about it, I came to the conclusion that the man was right – the average Bulgarian under communist rule was not a citizen, but a subject, therefore the country was not his. It belonged to the Party, to the people who embodied the system and controlled society, to Todor Zhivkov’s grandson. This statement by the heir of the First – in essence a banal mockery of our nation – motivated me to recall and describe my impressions of the time of communist rule. Seen with my own eyes and felt in my emotions from around 1965 to November 1989. These are my views and reflections, which are based on historical facts, statistics and documents, supplemented by my experience as a historian and citizen (subject) of Bulgaria. The question of the correct assessment by Bulgarian society of the rule of the Communist Party during the period 1944 - 1989 is particularly important for Bulgarian history. Filled with myths and legends, strongly influenced by the failures of the transition and the "closed" Bulgarian and Soviet archives, it continues to divide Bulgarian society, stimulates emigration ("What can I do here, where change cannot be sought") and is a major obstacle to finding a common national unifying idea. Bulgaria (together with Serbia) turns out to be the country where nostalgia for the communist dictatorship is strongest in Europe – according to official polls by various domestic and European sociological agencies, every third Bulgarian regrets the collapse of the socialist system (there is no other country that has erected a monument to its dictator since 1989). Known and unknown Bulgarian and foreign figures and organizations are blamed for the reasons that led to the end of communism, without assessing the profound changes that occurred in society as an inevitable national and global process. Information about how wonderful life was from the 1950s to the end of the 1980s continues to be passed down from generation to generation in many families, aided by the insufficiently reformed educational system and part of the media. THE BOOK IS FINANCED BY THE MINISTRY OF CULTURE