dannybou Wrote:And are we still incapable of researching Bulgarian awards?
Hi Danny,
At the moment I am told the only records that are available is a list of the winners of the Hero of PRB and Hero of Socialist Labor of PRB and a chance that Orders of Dimitrov the early numbered ones may be able to find out only such things like who they were awarded to but not what any citation would have been. The unnumbered Dimitrov's without an Order Book will ever remain a mystery as to who their bearers were. As it seems for the present at least undocumented orders of Bulgaria will remain a mystery as to their original owners.
Apparently the Bulgarians who emulated their Awards on the Soviet ones did not emulate the Soviets when it came to keeping meticulous records. Alternatively such records may have been destroyed after the fall of Communism in Bulgaria. As most of the things of communism fell into fervent disfavor.
Ron
There is a good reason why these orders can not usually be researched and it's a rather simple one. Most people who were awarded this Order were just given a number in their award book and the Order off of the top of the pile. You could have #3422 in your book and Order number #6783 on your chest it was very rare for the people handing out the awards to give the recipient a matching numbered set. I've only managed to collect two matching document/award sets and I've been searching! You can get a 5 digit numbered Red Banner for little money and a 4 digit for a little more but a 4 digit with paperwork costs you! The two lowest Red Banners in my collection are #40 and #85 and the highest number currently #15742. They are pretty hardy awards and it's rare to see them with enamel damage unlike the Red Banner Of Labour.
I always wondered about the serial numbers and the award booklets not matching. All this time I just assumed the seller was just making up this story. Thanks for the outside confirmation.:)
The two matching awards and documents I have are both to Land Force Colonels. The lower ranked officer sets I have do not have matching documents.
There are 2 variations of numbering on the reverse of the Red Banner, Horizontal or Vertical, most were horizontal. The military merits medal fortunately was not numbered so they all very easy align with their award booklets!
By 1957 Bulgaria had pretty much given up with recording numbers. You could be awarded a numbered Order but not have a number recorded in the booklet.
