Ted Van Dyke, guest speaker at the Bulgarian Embassy
On March 19, Ted Van Dyke spoke at the Bulgarian Embassy, along with Bulgarian Fulbright scholar Professor Ivan Hristov, on the life and accomplishments of Reuben Markham. Markham spent much of his career in Bulgaria, going there as a missionary-educator in 1912. He has been described as a Bulgarian figure as much as an American one. (Also, Markham was Ted’s grandfather, but he died before Ted could know him.)
Held to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the declaration of American independence, an event at the Embassy of the Republic of Bulgaria in the United States featured a lecture titled “Rubin H. Markham – A Friend of Humanity”
Ted Van Dyke is published in academic history journals. See earlier article.
Van Dyke discussed Markham’s teaching at the American Boys’ and Girls’ Schools in Samokov, as well as his secret mission in 1918, carrying a peace proposal across war-ravaged Europe from the Bulgarian government to the United States. Back in Bulgaria and starting to concentrate on journalism, he witnessed the 1923 military coup which overthrew the Agrarian leader, Alexander Stambolisky, followed by a bloody repression. Markham’s reporting, the first to expose the ‘white terror,’ had a “devastating” impact on the new regime. The Bulgarian government forced Markham to leave the Mission, and eventually, in 1927, arrested him for violating the Defense of the State Act, but he was acquitted.
He then began working for the Christian Science Monitor, moving to Vienna in 1933 as its Central European correspondent. He urged the United States to enter World War II in 1939, and in 1941 authored the best-selling Wave of the Past, a paean to democracy, which rebutted isolationist Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Wave of the Future. Alarmed by the prospect of Communist expansionism, he resigned his position at the Office of War Information in 1944 because of Allied support of Tito over Mihailovich in Yugoslavia. Returning to Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania for the Monitor in 1945, the Russians expelled him in June 1946 because of his articles. Markham met with President Truman at the White House six weeks later and advised him to confront Stalin.
The presentation was well received by both the Bulgarians and the Americans and was followed by a lively question period. Afterwards, several attendees indicated a wish to visit Markham’s gravesite, but were disappointed to learn it was in Twelve Mile, Kansas, where he was born. Acting Ambassador Stefka Yovcheva asked whether there were any memorials to Markham in Washington, but Van Dyke was forced to admit there were none.
Slides of the presentation