Bulgarian handwriting....

[huddyhuddy]

Hello....
Interested in learning more about the handwriting at the top of this visa.
And the point of entry/departure to Bulgaria on December 7th & 11th and via train or plane?
Thanks.

[Sokol]

It says: The visa was issued by request of the Croatian Foreign Ministry with verbal note Nr...

The arrival/departure stamps do not specify the transport. However he entered at Pirot, which was a border town for Bulgaria at that time, after the fall of Yugoslavia. If by plane, he would have landed in Sofia. I doubt an airfield existed at Pirot at all, not even today. Must be by train or a car, one of the main railways passes through Zagreb and then Pirot and Sofia.

[huddyhuddy]

Thank you Sokol.
Would you be able to also assist in finding out the reason for the visit to Sofia?
Dates are for December 7th-11th 1941...maybe some information can be found on Bulgarian sites, not able to locate information on English sites to date...

- - ------- - -

visit by Croatian Foreign Minster Dr. Mladen Lorkovic.

[Sokol]

This is what I found on a Bulgarian website /biography of the Bulgarian foreign minister in 1941-42 Popov/:

A characteristic moment that distinguishes Popov from Georgi Kyoseivanov is the implementation of a common Bulgarian-Croat insulating policy towards Serbia. In the inter-state relations Sofia-Zagreb is adopted a foreign policy position, expressed in: "Weak and isolated Serbia - strong and influential Bulgaria and Croatia". At the end of 1941, Croatian Foreign Minister Mladen Lorkovic, visiting Sofia, reached an agreement on "permanent consultations and exchange of assessments and information regarding Serbia". Lorkovic views Bulgaria as "a rocker of Serbian expansion," confessing that only a strong Bulgaria will be a guarantor of Croatia. Ivan Popov determines the possibility of a common Bulgarian-Croatian border on condition that Croatia receives a territorial corridor in Sandzak. At that time Zagreb - Sofia Magazine started publishing, reflecting the good and natural relations between the two allies.

[Sokol]

Seems it was a part of series of negotiations and contracts:

On December 8, 1941, a cultural agreement was signed in Sofia, which envisages the popularization of the cultural and historical heritage of the two nations and a number of initiatives in the field of science, education and culture. An official Croatian delegation headed by Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Mladen Lorkovic arrives for signing. Only two months before, on September 25, 1941 in Zagreb, three business agreements were concluded - the Trade Agreement, the Agreement on Trade in Goods and the Letter of Agreement for the Implementation of the Veterinary Convention concluded between Bulgaria and Yugoslavia in 1934 until the conclusion of the Croatian-Bulgarian Veterinary Agreement. With the Trade Agreement, Bulgaria and Croatia recognize mutual treatment of the most favored nation in trade, industry, shipping, jurisdiction, etc. A project for the establishment of a Croat-Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce was also developed.

[huddyhuddy]

Thank you ever sooooo much Sokol!
Solved a puzzle here indeed!

[huddyhuddy]

apparently there is another marking for the same date: December 6th...
Any sense in location and type?

[Sokol]

It's Commissariat of the Rail and Border Police at Bela Palanka. That must be the border checkpoint of occupied Yugoslavia.