Georgi Markov

Georgi Markov was born on 1 March 1929, in Knyazhevo, a Sofia neighbourhood. In 1946, he graduated from the Gymnasium (high school) and began university studies in industrial chemistry. Initially, Markov worked as a chemical engineer and a teacher in a technical school. At the age of 19, he became ill with tuberculosis which forced him to attend various hospitals. His first literary attempts occurred during that time. In 1957, a novel, The Night of Caesium, appeared. Soon another novel, The Ajax Winners (1959), and two collections of short stories (1961) were published. In 1962, Markov published the novel Men which won the annual award of the Union of Bulgarian Writers and he was subsequently accepted as a member of the Union, a prerequisite for a professional career in literature. Georgi Markov started working at the Narodna Mladezh Publishing house. The story collections A Portrait of My Double (1966) and The Women of Warsaw (1968) secured his place as one of the most talented young writers of Bulgaria. Markov also wrote a number of plays but most of them were never staged or were removed from theatre repertoire by the Communist censors: To Crawl Under the Rainbow, The Elevator, Assassination in the Cul-de-Sac, Stalinists, and I Was Him. The novel The Roof was halted in mid-printing since it described as a fact and in allegorical terms the collapse of the roof of the Lenin steel mill. Markov was one of the authors of the popular TV series Every Kilometer (Всеки километър or At Every Milestone) which created the character of the Second World War detective Velinsky and his nemesis the Resistance fighter Deyanov.

Despite some of his works being banned, Georgi Markov had become a successful author. He was among the writers and poets that Todor Zhivkov tried to co-opt and coerce into serving the regime with their works. During this period Markov had a bohemian lifestyle, which was unknown to most Bulgarians.[7]

Although not yet confirmed,[8] Markov's first published work was considered to be "The Whiskey Record Holder", which was issued in the newspaper "Narodna kultura".[9] There are at least three versions as to when he debuted as an author:[10]

- Slav Karaslavov's version (1972) - claims that Markov debuts in the newspaper "Stershel" in 1952. In the same year, signed by B. Aprilov and G. Markov, the feuilleton "The Forest of Horrors" was published in the newspaper.[11]

- Yordan Vasilev's version (1990) - according to him, Markov debuts in the newspaper "Narodna armia"[12] in 1951. Signed as "Georgi Markov", "The Whiskey Record Holder" (July 7, 1951) and "Bolshevik" (December 12, 1951) were published.[13]

- Aleksander Kostov's version[14] (1996) - says that Markov debuts in the newspaper "Zemedelsko zname" in 1947. Signed as "G. Markov", many of his works, some of which are "Giordano Bruno" (February 19, 1947) and "Heinrich Heine" (February 21, 1947), were published.

In 1969, Markov left for Bologna, Italy, where his brother lived. His initial idea was to wait until his status with the Bulgarian authorities improved, but he gradually changed his mind and decided to stay in the West, especially after September 1971 when the Bulgarian government refused to extend his passport. Markov moved to London, where he learned English and started working for the Bulgarian section of the BBC World Service (1972). He tried to work for the film industry, hoping for help from Peter Uvaliev, but was unsuccessful. Later he also worked with Deutsche Welle and Radio Free Europe. In 1972, Markov's membership in the Union of Bulgarian Writers was suspended and he was sentenced in absentia to six years and six months in prison for his defection.

His works were withdrawn from libraries and bookshops and his name was not mentioned by the official Bulgarian media until 1989. The Bulgarian Secret Service opened a file on Markov file under the code name "Wanderer". In 1974, his play To Crawl Under the Rainbow was staged in London, while in Edinburgh the play Archangel Michael, written in English, won first prize. The novel The Right Honourable Chimpanzee, co-written with David Phillips, was published after his death. In 1975, Markov married Annabel Dilke. The couple had a daughter, Alexandra-Raina, born a year later.

Between 1975 and 1978, Markov worked on his In Absentia Reports, an analysis of life in Communist Bulgaria. They were broadcast weekly on Radio Free Europe. Their criticism of the Communist government and of the Party leader Todor Zhivkov made Markov, even more, an enemy of the regime.

Today, we Bulgarians present a fine example of what it is to exist under a lid which we cannot lift and which we no longer believe someone else can lift... And the unending slogan which millions of loudspeakers blare out is that everyone is fighting for the happiness of others. Every word spoken under the lid constantly changes its meaning. Lies and truths swap their values with the frequency of an alternating current...We have seen how personality vanishes, how individuality is destroyed, how the spiritual life of a whole people is corrupted to turn them into a listless flock of sheep. We have seen so many of those demonstrations which humiliate human dignity, where normal people are expected to applaud some paltry mediocrity who has proclaimed himself a demi-god and condescendingly waves to them from the heights of his police inviolability...[15]

— Georgi Markov describing life under an authoritarian regime in The Truth that Killed

In 1978, Markov was killed in London (see below), allegedly by an operative connected to the KGB and the Bulgarian secret police under Zhivkov. His In Absentia Reports were published in Bulgaria in 1990, after the end of the Communist government.

In 2000, Markov was posthumously awarded the Order of Stara Planina, Bulgaria's most prestigious honour, for his "significant contribution to the Bulgarian literature, drama, and non-fiction and for his exceptional civic position and confrontation to the Communist regime."

On 7 September 1978, Markov walked across Waterloo Bridge spanning the River Thames, and waited to take a bus to his job at the BBC. While at the bus stop, he felt a slight sharp pain, as a bug bite or sting, on the back of his right thigh. He looked behind him and saw a man picking up an umbrella off the ground. The man hurriedly crossed to the other side of the street and got in a taxi which then drove away. The event is recalled as the "Umbrella Murder".

When he arrived at work at the BBC World Service offices, Markov noticed a small red pimple had formed at the site of the sting he had felt earlier and the pain had not lessened or stopped. He told at least one of his colleagues at the BBC, Theo Lirkov, about this incident.[16] That evening he developed a fever and was admitted to St James' Hospital in Balham, where he died four days later, on 11 September 1978, at the age of 49. Dr. Bernard Riley, the attending physician treating Markov, considered many possible causes of his illness, including that Markov had been bitten by a poisonous tropical snake. Dr. Riley had the inflamed area at the back of Markov's leg x-rayed, but no foreign object was detected at this time.[17]

The cause of death might have been poisoning from a ricin-filled pellet.[18][19][20][21]

Markov's grave is in a small churchyard at the Church of St Candida and Holy Cross in Whitchurch Canonicorum, Dorset.

Later investigation and aftermath

Due to the circumstances and statements Markov made to doctors expressing the suspicion that he had been poisoned, the Metropolitan Police ordered a thorough autopsy of Markov's body. Dr. Rufus Crompton performed the autopsy, noting a red mark on the back of Markov's leg. He cut a tissue sample from the area, with a matching sample from the other leg. These samples were sent for further analysis at the Porton Down chemical and biological weapons laboratory. There, Dr David Gall, the Research Medical Officer, found a tiny pellet in the tissue sample.[22]

The pellet measured 1.70 millimetres (0.067 in) in diameter and was composed of 90% platinum and 10% iridium. It had two holes with diameters of 0.35 mm (0.014 in) drilled through it, producing an X-shaped cavity. Further examination by experts from Porton Down could not detect any remnant of poison. Considering possible poisons, scientists hypothesized that the pellet might have contained ricin.[23]

Porton Down scientists also thought that a sugary substance had been used to coat the tiny holes, creating a bubble that trapped the poison inside the cavities, with a specially crafted coating designed to melt at 37 °C (99 °F): human body temperature. After the pellet was inside Markov, the coating might have melted and the poison released to be absorbed into the bloodstream and kill him.[24]

Regardless of whether the doctors treating Markov had known that the poison might have been ricin, the result would have been the same, as there was no known antidote to ricin at the time.[25]

A diagram of a possible umbrella gun

Ten days before the murder, an attempt was made to kill another Bulgarian defector, Vladimir Kostov, in the same manner as Markov, in a Paris metro station.[26]

KGB defector Oleg Kalugin alleged that the KGB arranged the murder, even presenting the Bulgarian assassin with alternatives such as a poisonous jelly to smear on Markov's skin, but to date, no one has been charged with Markov's murder, largely because most documents relating to it are unavailable, probably destroyed. Kalugin stated that Markov had been killed using an umbrella gun.[27]

The British newspaper The Times has reported that the prime suspect is an Italian named Francesco Gullino (or Giullino) who was last known to be living in Denmark.[28] A British documentary, The Umbrella Assassin (2006), interviewed people associated with the case in Bulgaria, Britain, Denmark, and America, and revealed that Gullino, is alive and well, and still travelling freely throughout Europe. There were reports in June 2008 that Scotland Yard had renewed its interest in the case. Detectives were sent to Bulgaria and requests were made to interview relevant individuals.[20]

In August 2018 the case was the subject of the BBC Radio 4 programme The Reunion.[29]

• List of Eastern Bloc defectors
• List of unsolved murders in the United Kingdom
• Incidents involving ricin
• Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko
• Salisbury poisoning
• List of journalists killed in Europe
• The Executioner (Kisyov novel)

• Markov, Georgi; David Phillips (1978). Right Honourable Chimpanzee. Secker & Warburg. ISBN 978-0-436-48310-3.
• Markov, Georgi (1984). The Truth That Killed. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 978-0-89919-296-3.
• Emsley, John (2008). Molecules of Murder. Royal Society of Chemistry. ISBN 978-0-85404-965-3 – via Internet Archive.
• Volodarsky, Boris (2009). The KGB's Poison Factory: From Lenin to Litvinenko. Frontline Books. ISBN 978-1-84832-542-5.
• Gregg, Stefanie (8 June 2015). Und der Duft nach Weiß (in German). Forever. ISBN 3958180450.

• Markov's umbrella assassin revealed. After 26 years, police hope to bring killer to justice by Nick Paton Walsh. 6 June 2005. (The Guardian)
• WNET (PBS) "Secrets of the Dead" on investigation of the assassination.
• Georgi Markov "The Umbrella Assassination" mvm.ed.ac.uk
• "The Poison Umbrella" Yveta Kenety, in: The New Presence 4/2006, S. 46–48
• Georgi Markov at Find a Grave
• Works by or about Georgi Markov at Internet Archive