February 16, 1898: BTA Releases its First Bulletin

One hundred and twenty-eight years ago on Monday, on February 16 (New Style February 28), 1898, the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) put out its first news bulletin. It was hand-calligraphed in person by the agency's recently appointed first director, Oskar Iskender. The three-page publication contained seven dispatches, datelined from European capitals, covering an assassination attempt, unrest in the Bulgarian-populated lands left under Ottoman control, a forthcoming duel, and price fluctuations on European commodity and stock exchanges.

Copies were delivered by hand to each of six subscribers: the Princely Palace, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Ministry, and foreign diplomatic agencies. Sofia's newspapers gained access on the following day, when the first three news items crediting BTA as a source were printed in the Unofficial Section of the State Gazette.

The top story came from Vienna: an update on the deteriorated health condition of H.R.H. Princess Clementine of Bourbon-Orleans (1817-1907), Prince Ferdinand I's mother.

The bulletin covered a recent assassination attempt against King George I of Greece. On the afternoon of February 14, 1898, the monarch and his daughter, Princess Maria, were returning to the palace from their walk in Paleo Faliro when shots were fired near Analatos 9 (in today's Agios Sostis), by which one of the king's attendants was wounded. The two perpetrators of the attack disappeared but were arrested the next day: municipal employee Georgios Karditsis, who had fought as a volunteer in Crete, and Ioannis Georgiou or Kyriakos from Macedonia. The assailants claimed that they wanted to kill the king because they considered him responsible for the defeat and national humiliation in the month-long Greco-Turkish War of 1897.

The dispatch from Paris is about an impending duel between Colonel Georges Piquart and Colonel Henry. The two men duelled after clashing in court during the libel trial of Emile Zola over his famous "J'accuse" letter, written over the Dreyfus Affair.

The "Bulgarian loan of 1898" in the table at the end of the bulletin refers to a Treasury bond issue contracted on December 20, 1889, between the Bulgarian Government and a group of six banks: Deutsche Vereinigsbank, Wiener Bankvereinig, Lenderbank, Banque Internationale de Paris, Banque de Paris et de Nederlande and Mitteldeutsche Kreditbank. The Bulgarian National Bank used the proceeds of the loan to settle its receivables from the Treasury.