May 2, 2024 • 53 mins
Host Becky Milligan hears about the king’s last supper and wonders if revenge really is a dish best served cold. She learns what happened to the royal children when they returned from exile and realizes nothing is ever quite what it seems. It’s time to reveal the whole truth. Can she finally lay King Boris III’s mystery to rest?
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Speaker 6 (02:13):
Goodbye.
Speaker 7 (02:18):
The Royal Palace, Sofia August nineteen forty three and King
Boris is dining with a friend. The friends a tall
man about the same age as the King himself. From
the way he sits straight backed to his chair, you
(02:39):
can guess he's had a military past, and when he
stands up briefly to reach for the serving dish, it's
clear he has a stiff leg, a slight limp, probably
a war injury. It's just the two of them at
the table, a private dinner. The servants have been dismissed,
(03:01):
so it's the friend who offers the king a second
help him.
Speaker 8 (03:09):
I'm convinced that something was put into his soup. You know,
he had dinner with somebody alone and fell ill after
dinner suddenly.
Speaker 7 (03:19):
So who did he have dinner with?
Speaker 8 (03:21):
I think some assistant who worked with him.
Speaker 9 (03:26):
And fell after that.
Speaker 7 (03:30):
The friend's name is Jordan Sevov. He's an architect by trade,
but in the last year or so he's somehow become
the King's closest advisor. Other more experienced assistants have been
pushed out. Zevov's very comfortable in the royal presence, and
(03:50):
we can make an educated guess about what was in
that serving dish.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Nobody even remembered what the menu was, but my father
loved mushrooms, There's no doubt.
Speaker 7 (04:02):
So mushrooms the King's favorite dish. Was it mushrooms that
made Boris ill? Because that meal it turned out to
be the King's last supper. The next morning, Boris collapsed
and as he lay on his sick bed, doctors noticed
(04:23):
his skin was covered in those brown blotches we've heard about,
as if he'd been.
Speaker 8 (04:30):
Poisoned and never really recovered. That's all.
Speaker 7 (04:35):
It's a shocking possibility. Was the king betrayed by his
closest confidante from Blanchard House And exactly right, media, this
is the Butterfly King. I'm Becky Milligan, Chapter eight. The
(05:37):
rest is history. We're in Q in West London, not
far from the National Archives actually, where we began our
search for evidence about who killed Boris. But today we're
not looking for dusty old documents. We're looking for plants, poisons, plants,
(06:01):
or to be more precise, poisonous mushrooms, which is why
we're at CUES Royal Botanic Gardens, because it happens to
have the largest and most comprehensive fungy collection in the world.
Speaker 9 (06:14):
My work was mold.
Speaker 7 (06:17):
That's cue's senior researcher, Arena Droganina. And if you didn't
catch that, because I sure didn't, she said mold.
Speaker 9 (06:26):
Yes, I'm mold.
Speaker 7 (06:28):
You know, for a moment I thought you said molds,
and then I thought spies, and you thought something. We're
talking to someone in the spy world, all right, So molds.
Speaker 9 (06:38):
Molds so interesting, and of course also mushrooms.
Speaker 7 (06:43):
Arena works with all kinds of mushrooms, the good, the bad,
and the very bad.
Speaker 9 (06:51):
And those that produce antibiotics, and they also produce a
lot of toxins as well.
Speaker 7 (06:55):
Guess which mushrooms Arena's most keen.
Speaker 9 (06:58):
On the really deadly. The thing is that mushrooms they
usually have not a single toxin, but they have a
cocktail of toxins.
Speaker 7 (07:07):
In other words, if they get into the wrong hands
and the right mouth, poisonous mushrooms are pretty effective killers.
But there aren't as many lethal varieties as you might think.
Speaker 9 (07:19):
If we talk about all really deadly poisonous fungi that
can kill, there maybe less than one hundred.
Speaker 7 (07:29):
So if King Boris was poisoned by mushrooms, are there
any obvious suspects in that top one hundred?
Speaker 9 (07:37):
There is a particular poisonous one that is called Amanita followers.
Speaker 7 (07:42):
In plain English, it goes by the name of death cap. Basically,
the death cap does exactly what it says on the tin,
It kills you. Then there's another prime suspect.
Speaker 9 (07:55):
We can also talk about a very interesting and the
varied Jurus fungus that is called whip cup.
Speaker 7 (08:04):
So we have the webcap and the death cap, twin
toxins with a single murderous aim, and they're pretty commonplace.
Where do I find them.
Speaker 9 (08:15):
In the forest?
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Really?
Speaker 9 (08:17):
Any forests? Is any forest? Yeah? Why not? In Bulgaria
as well, of course.
Speaker 7 (08:23):
So somebody wanting to kill Boris, somebody like his architect
friend Sevov for example, would have had easy access to
deadly mushrooms. I mean, Arana Palace has its own mini forest.
We went walking in it with the King's aid Jarvil,
and guess what he pointed out.
Speaker 9 (08:43):
It's a fall of mushrooms in the garden.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
Now, But are.
Speaker 7 (08:47):
These lethal mushrooms easy to spot? What does a death
cap look like?
Speaker 9 (08:52):
That's usually peel in color, slightly greenish whiteish, and looking
similar to classical mushroom.
Speaker 7 (09:01):
Really, that's the ordinary mushroom that you'd chop up much
in an oblognmber.
Speaker 9 (09:06):
So there is this possibility to confuse them. Ah.
Speaker 7 (09:11):
Now that's interesting, and it makes me think I need
to consider a much less dramatic scenario. What if Boris
accidentally poisoned himself. We already know that Boris loved to
spend time in the forests among the flora and fauna,
looking for rare plants. Perhaps he also did a bit
(09:34):
of foraging. Now, Simeon told us that Boris was knowledgeable
about fungi.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
My father knew a lot about mushrooms.
Speaker 7 (09:42):
But Boris had a lot on his mind, the war,
the unhappy alliance with Hitler, how to protect Bulgaria's Jews.
Is it possible he just got distracted and picked her
poisonous mushroom by mistake, then on wittingly just handed it
to the Royal Cook. It's certainly possible, but Arena doesn't
(10:06):
believe that a botanist like Boris would make such a
basic error.
Speaker 9 (10:11):
If the person has an even superficial knowledge. I believe
that this mistake is very unlikely because usually people that
like to collect up big mushrooms in the forest, they
should know them, so they don't think the king do
this mistake.
Speaker 7 (10:27):
Okay, I think we can rule out Boris accidentally poisoning himself,
but that puts Boris's architect friend back in the frame.
I want to tell you a bit more about Jordan Seveov,
because there's definitely something fishy about him. In the last
(10:48):
three years of Boris's life, it was Severov who had
the king's ear, and he'd infiltrated the palace in the
most extraordinary way.
Speaker 9 (10:59):
Here's how happened.
Speaker 7 (11:02):
When Boris married Queen Giovanna and she moved into Varana Palace.
The king's sister Eudoxia, felt well a bit of a
spare part, so she decided to move out, and it
was the well known Bulgarian architect Jordan Sevov, who was
(11:22):
commissioned to build a villa for Eudoxia. Suddenly Sevov found
himself at the heart of the royal circle, and once
the war started, Sevov frequently began showing up at the
palace unannounced for private audiences with King Boris, and Boris
(11:43):
really took to him. He was impressed by Sevov's intelligence.
He started to ask Sevov's opinion on the political dilemmas
of the day, and it wasn't long before he began
asking Sevov for his advice. The king's other aids and
advisers felt squeezed out, and they started to become seriously worried.
(12:07):
In fact, Sevov had such power over King Boris that
behind his back people called him the Bulgarian Rasputin. He
came to the palace whenever he chose to. He practically
had his own key. But here's the thing. It turns
out that Sevov was a staunch admirer of Germany and
(12:31):
of Hitler. Now, the royal children grew up in difficult times,
murderous times when trust was hard to come by, so
they'd been schooled in keeping stum. Whenever there were any
visitors at home.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
What I remember is that mother will tell us that, well,
we just should know how to keep our mouth shut,
But I think it was more for is anybody Eves
dropping over?
Speaker 7 (13:06):
Did the Queen suspect that Sevov was not entirely trustworthy?
Was sev Off being paid to infiltrate royal circles? Boris
had fallen out with Hitler, remember, So is it possible
that Severov bumped off Boris maybe to hand power to
(13:27):
his brother Kirol, who might be more sympathetic. The reason
I say that is because just a few weeks after
Boris died, Kirol went to meet Hitler. It's really eerie
watching the newsreels Boris's little brother, downcast, walking in his
(13:49):
big brother's footsteps, saluting the Fura. It's particularly chilling because
Kirol and Boris look incredibly alike. You can only really
tell them apart because Kirol's wearing a black armband. You
almost feel like you're watching a ghost. So did the
(14:12):
Nazis hope Kirol would be more pliant to their demands?
Did they think the little brother would be easier to
manipulate once their big brother was out of the way.
It sounds plausible. So let's return to the night in question.
That supper. One thing is nagging me about it. I mean,
(14:36):
kings have food tasters, don't they.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
No, no, no, never never. This was the sort of
Roman days.
Speaker 7 (14:47):
I think he means Julius Caesar might have had a
food taster, but the King of Bulgaria not so much.
Turns out Boris was pretty lax about his personal security,
and also.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
He liked to move around, I mean without any fuss
or bodyguards or what have you, which is so necessary nowadays.
The only rule he had he would never return on
the same route that he had gone to a place,
because he had had a tence on his life.
Speaker 7 (15:19):
But if Boris was poisoned, wouldn't it have been pretty
obvious to him? I mean, doesn't a toxic toadstool taste
pretty foul? Arena georg Nina is our mycologist or mushroom expert.
Speaker 9 (15:32):
Some poisonous found They are known to have some bitter tastes,
but these ones that are really poisonous, they had tasteless.
Speaker 7 (15:40):
They're tasteless. They don't even taste that. You can't die
having had a beautiful mushroom pie or something. It'd just
be a tasteless mess. God, how awful I know. I'm
getting carried away again. But of course, what Arena really
means is that the deathly mushrooms would have been undetectable.
The king just wouldn't have known. Tis them mixed into
(16:01):
a saucer a pie he'd have tucked in as usual
with Gusto. So time to ask Arena. The crucial question
is mushroom poisoning though a reliable way to kill someone
to carry out a murder.
Speaker 9 (16:16):
Yes, it is reliable. They could increase the concentration and
make a powder, of course, because for the dead cup
you need only a quarter of the cup to kill person.
Speaker 7 (16:29):
So seven of could have even sprinkled a toxic mushroom
powder onto the food. And what's more, those killer mushrooms
cover their tracks like nothing else, because you can eat one,
feel a bit dodgy for about twenty four hours, and
then feel fine again until it's way way too late.
Speaker 9 (16:50):
They are very dangerous because the poisoning appears sometimes two
weeks or three weeks after the.
Speaker 7 (17:01):
Poisoning, so several could have slipped Boris that poison weeks
before the last supper. He was a regular at the
royal dinner table. But how come the doctors didn't clock
that Boris had food poisoning. I mean, that's pretty basic
first aid, isn't it asking someone what they've eaten? And
the symptoms of mushroom poisoning include nausea, headache, flushing, and
(17:26):
heart palpitations.
Speaker 9 (17:28):
It's really difficult to prove because you know, you film seek,
you see the doctor, and doctor asked, what did you
do yesterday? What did you did they before? But nobody
asks you what did you two weeks ago or three
weeks ago or a month ago? Right, yeah, they did.
They would just say, oh, heart attack.
Speaker 7 (17:46):
They wouldn't have detected the mushroom toxins they did. That's
very interesting because they could get away with murder.
Speaker 9 (17:55):
Whoever it was. Yep, have I just solved that murder?
Speaker 7 (18:01):
Was it the architect sevov On behalf of the Nazis
in the dining room with toxic mushrooms? In theory, that
seems perfectly possible. But did he really have the opportunity
to orchestrate his murderous plan?
Speaker 9 (18:17):
Obviously you have to administer it.
Speaker 7 (18:19):
Well, yes, that's because they could just push that little
bit of the nice pasta with that lovely mushroom source
to one side and stick to the potatoes and then
what do you do?
Speaker 9 (18:29):
Because comedy of errors there have you get rid of it?
Speaker 7 (18:32):
Then the problem is Sevov would need to have eaten
exactly the same dish as the king, or the king
would have become suspicious. So if Sevov ate the same
thing as the king, how come he didn't die too?
I guess it's possible he took an antidote, except Erna
(18:55):
tells me there are no reliable antidotes for death cap
or webcap mushrooms. Even today, I'm starting to feel less convinced.
And isn't it all a bit too convenient? Because there's
a very real possibility that Sevov was framed. The other
(19:19):
palisades were jealous of him. They hated his influence, his
bad influence as they saw it, over their beloved king.
So when Boris died, a rumor began to spread, a
rumor that Sevov had been found at home counting out
gold bars Nazi blood money for bumping off Boris. Simeon
(19:45):
thinks that's all buncom buncom put out by the communists.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Afterwards, the propaganda tried, to, of course blame him for
all sorts of things and said that they were in
goods of Nazi gold with the what you call it,
the swastika, as though the Nazis, if they had poisoned
my father, would be that idiotic as to give it
(20:12):
with their signature on it.
Speaker 7 (20:14):
Well, come to think of it, I suppose it does
sound a bit like a bad movie, A tad obvious.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
That you know, that's all part of propaganda, which people
who are in this propaganda things sometimes think that the
rest of human beings are idiots because they try and
sell such absurdities. But they drumm it in, drummat in,
drummat in, and finally it sort of becomes half truth.
Speaker 7 (20:40):
Point taken, I'm ruling out seven and the Nazis, but
the mushrooms, I have to say, I'm now certain that
was how Boris was killed. As for who did it, well,
I now have a very clear idea, and we'll come
(21:01):
back to that very soon.
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Speaker 7 (24:16):
I want to pause our murder investigation for a moment
because I need to tie up some other loose ends.
We've been focused on Boris's murder, but Simeon and Maria
Luisa have lived whole lifetime since then, long and extraordinary lifetimes,
despite being haunted by their father's death. So you'll remember
(24:42):
that a year after Boris died in nineteen forty three,
the Red Army marched into Bulgaria. Simeon and Maria Louisa
were seven and eleven years old. The Soviets promptly shot
most of Boris's old government and the royal household, including
Kiro and several actually poor Queen Giovanna and her children
(25:04):
were pretty much kept under house arrest, and then in
September nineteen forty six, a referendum, albeit heavily rigged, abolished
the monarchy. Bulgaria was declared a republic and the queen
and her children were asked to leave the country. Asked
to leave is a bit of a euphemism, let's face it,
(25:26):
they didn't really have a choice. At first, the royal
trio went to Alexandria in Egypt, where the queen's own
father was also in exile. Later, General Franco, the nationalist
dictator of Spain, granted them asylum, so the family settled there.
(25:47):
Simeon stayed and Maria Louisa eventually married and moved to
New York, but their hearts stayed firmly in Bulgaria. They
wondered if they would ever be able to go home.
Speaker 8 (25:59):
Oh, it's hopped one. They were against hope. And then
one day the Vilin Wall fell in eighty nine, and
shortly thereafter the Bulgarians got rid of that regime, and
the possibility was there.
Speaker 7 (26:15):
After the war came down, communist regimes across Eastern Europe collapsed.
Simeon was desperate to return to his homeland, to his kingdom, Bulgaria.
But Simeon knew he had to be cautious. He had
no idea how he'd be received so many years after
he'd left. Would he be welcomed or met with hostility?
(26:38):
During Maria Louisa and Simeon's exile, the Communists had painted
a dark picture of the royal family. The Bulgarians were
told they were thieves who didn't care a jot about Bulgaria.
Simeon was made out to be an arch villain.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
People were told all kinds of derogatory or hostiles or silence.
Speaker 7 (27:02):
When Simeon thought about returning home after half a century
of absence, he wondered if anyone would even show up.
So in nineteen ninety one he sent a special envoy
to test the water to see how the Bulgarian people,
newly emerged from the Iron Curtain would react to blue
blood in the country. And Simeon knew just the right
(27:26):
person for the job.
Speaker 8 (27:29):
So my brother called me and said to me, how
would you like to to go? And I said, by
my God, And then it came through.
Speaker 7 (27:40):
Maria Louisa arrived at night. The remnants of the old
Communist regime were not happy. The old Party loyalist turned
off all the street lamps from the airport to Sofia
to make her journey as difficult as possible. Not a
good omen perhaps, but the Bulgarian people felt very differently.
(28:04):
They lined the streets, waving torches and lighting her path
with bonfires. Remember the last time Maria Louisa had seen
her homeland, she was just thirteen years old.
Speaker 8 (28:17):
The crowds were unbelievable. I never expected anybody to sort of,
you know, remember anything, because it's almost two generations, fifty years,
it's two generations. And I went out on not on
the balcony like the queen, but on a terrace and
said to them, you know, you're not here for me
because I was a child, but you remember my parents,
(28:41):
and it's the love for my parents that you are
here applauding. It's very moving, very very moving. It was
an unbelievable, you know, dream that came through.
Speaker 7 (28:54):
And then in nineteen ninety six it was her brother's turn.
When the people learned Simeon had touched down, the bells
of Alexander Nevsky Cathedral rang out in his honor the
last time Simeon had heard those bells. He was six
years old, a little boy in shorts and white knee socks,
(29:18):
trying not to cry at his father's funeral.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Actually it's I mean, Paradoxica got such such a joy.
But the sound of those bells was when my father died.
So there was a sudden return to precisely that very
sad moment in forty three. They realized that it brought
me back, all of a sudden, with half his century
(29:42):
for a few.
Speaker 7 (29:42):
Minutes, the boy King finally returned home, aged fifty nine.
Even now, Simeon stares at the ground when I ask
him about that moment. He's still humbled by the welcome
he received.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
To me, it was a a very personal moment. It
was unbelievably or undescribably moving, because after all fifty years
in exile, finally to set foot back on the country
when I was born in.
Speaker 7 (30:17):
Watching the news footage is incredible. Crowds literally weep for joy.
Women run alongside Sameon's train, crossing flowers into his hands.
It's as if they're welcoming the Messiah or King Boris himself.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
One of the major factors was that it was Boris's son,
the Little King Who's coming back. You see, it was
a tremendous reception. Nobody had expected this, and it was
really quite extraordinary.
Speaker 7 (30:50):
Sounds like a fairy tale ending, doesn't it? A happily
ever after? Except this was only the beginning. Simeon's homecoming
wasn't plain sailing after fifty years behind the Iron curtain.
He knew Bulgaria certainly didn't have the stomach for another monarchy.
(31:14):
He knew he couldn't claim the throne again.
Speaker 9 (31:17):
And I thought, that's not fair.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
These people have been fifty years under a totalitarian system,
So fifty years of such a system. Who am I
to tell them? Look, guys, my system is better. Let's
have it go.
Speaker 7 (31:34):
But people really believed the Little King, as he was
still known, could help them. Simeon had spent his exile
largely in Spain. He was a Westerner. He'd done military
training in Pennsylvania, He'd worked in finance in Europe. The
Bulgarians felt sure he'd be able to turn their fortunes around,
(31:55):
and Simeon, well, Simeon wanted to help. He wanted to
continue his father's legacy. It's what he felt. He was
born for the sense.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Of duty is something which is hammered into us that
one can or should help one's country. It's part of
the monarchs thinking. It might sound old fashioned, but that's
what it is.
Speaker 7 (32:21):
Okay, there's something I've kept back from you, but I'll
let Simeon tell you himself.
Speaker 5 (32:28):
No way.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Want to sound derogatory, but I I demoted myself by
becoming prime minister.
Speaker 7 (32:35):
Yep, you heard that correctly. In the summer of two
thousand and one, King Simeon On, a landslide victory, became
Bulgaria's Prime minister. His party was called the National Movement
for Stability and Progress. He helped Bulgaria become a member
of NATO and paved the way for Bulgaria to join
(32:56):
the European Union. So at first things went well, and
then they didn't. The Bulgarians wanted much more progress than
they got. They wanted a big boost to their living standards,
but that didn't happen. So in two thousand and five
Simeon was ousted as prime minister and his party became
(33:19):
a junior partner in a coalition government. Four years later,
his party failed to win any seats at all, and
Simeon resigned from politics.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
The fact that we had a democracy is this ancient,
and the fact that we're in the Eel is just
as important.
Speaker 7 (33:37):
But there was another problem. You'll remember that when the
Royal siblings went into exile, the Communist Party nationalized all
their palaces and properties. Simeon and Maria Louisa wanted them back,
so they went to the European Court of Human Rights,
and that infuriated many Bulgarians. They argued, Siman was only
(34:00):
interested in enriching himself, not his people. Simeon's hurt by that.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
We serve, we don't dules the system for ourselves.
Speaker 7 (34:14):
The Royal siblings lost their court case. They didn't get
all their palaces back, but they got the one they
really wanted, Varana Palace, King Boris's sanctuary, the place where
he loved to spend time with his two little children.
Maria Louisa and Simeon right back to who killed King Boris,
(34:41):
the question that Maria Luisa and Simeon have never stopped asking. Well,
there's been a development, because something rather extraordinaries happened. Back
in the summer of twenty twenty three, Russia launched her
first lunar mission in nearly fifty years. It was a
(35:04):
pretty big deal in terms of national pride. The unmanned
spacecraft was due to land on the south side of
the Moon, but the rocket crashed the mission ended in
complete failure. It was a massive blow for Russia's prestige.
(35:28):
Fast forward a few weeks and the man responsible for
that embarrassment suddenly finds himself gravely ill. In hospital for
two weeks, leading space scientist Vitalie Melnikoff battled a very
strange illness, and then he died, and Russian state media
(35:52):
reported he died of mushroom poisoning. Sounds very suspicious to me,
and very familiar. In recent years there's been a huge
spate of mysterious deaths in Russia. But Irina George Nina
are mushroom expert, believes she knows where the inspiration came.
Speaker 9 (36:15):
From these attempts to poison. They all come from the
Cold War KGB. And I think that all started before
the World War Two. I think that all started in
late thirties for sure.
Speaker 7 (36:29):
Why does she think that? Well, remember what our Bulgarian
historian George Bosdiganov told us.
Speaker 11 (36:36):
From ninety thirty eight to nineteen fifty three, the anchovied
that's Ursian Special Service maintained two laboratories for the production
of deadly poisonous toxicological one and bacteriological one.
Speaker 7 (36:51):
And remember those laboratories had a specific brief, not just
to silence Stalin's enemies, but to do.
Speaker 9 (36:59):
It without leaving any traces.
Speaker 7 (37:03):
In other words, they fatally poisoned people and made it
look like their victims had died of a heart attack,
which is of course what's written on King Boris's death certificate.
And it turns out our mushroom expert, Arena, who's based
(37:23):
at the Royal Botanic Gardens in London, knows quite a
lot about those poison laboratories.
Speaker 9 (37:30):
They're all laboratories sell with very bad intentions.
Speaker 7 (37:33):
Very bad intentions indeed, and Irena should know. She's Russian.
She knew people, not friends of hers, who worked in
those labs. That's how she knows they were specifically working
on mushrooms. Yes, mushrooms, and believe crime related to mushrooms
(37:55):
are connected to mushrooms. Irena thinks that in their seats
pre war laboratories, the Soviets were tinkering with fungy toxins,
making them more concentrated, trying to mimic them, basically creating
a chemical weapon based on mushrooms, perhaps one that was
(38:17):
fit to kill a king.
Speaker 9 (38:19):
I think the Russians they maybe learned from nature about
the docksins and tried to optimize them and synthesize something similar.
Speaker 7 (38:29):
Okay, deep breath, I'm going to ask Arena outright, So,
knowing what you know about the KGB, the laboratories and
so on, and what we've told you about Boris and
how he died all those symptoms, do you think he
was murdered?
Speaker 9 (38:48):
I cannot exclude this could be, it could be. Can
I cannot exclude.
Speaker 7 (38:55):
This, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to call it. After
months of investigation, I believe King Boris was murdered by
the Soviets. Boris's murder as the Soviet hallmark stamped all
over it. They had the means, and with their embassy
(39:16):
next to the palace, the Soviets had plenty of opportunity
to slip the synthetic mushroom poison into the king's food
or drink. As for their motive, remember, Stalin dreamed of
spreading communism across Eastern Europe and Bulgaria was a vital
foothold for anyone trying to consolidate their power in the region.
(39:40):
The only problem was that there was a king in
the way, a very popular king, and if it was
the Soviets, the plan worked. Just one year after the
king's death, the Red Army marched into Sofia and the
Iron Curtain swallowed up bulgar So I believe King Boris
(40:05):
was murdered by the Soviets or by the Bulgarian communists
with help from the Soviets, using synthetic mushroom based poisons
from those dreadful chemical weapons labs. That certainly coincides with
Maria Louisa's suspicions when I spoke to her a few
(40:25):
months ago, when she said that she was convinced something
had been put in the king's soup, and about who
she thought did it.
Speaker 8 (40:34):
Who had the greatest advantage, who gets rid of him
the Soviet Union.
Speaker 7 (40:41):
But although Simeon admits he has questions over his father's death,
he wouldn't point the finger at anyone. He wouldn't even
allow himself to say the word murder. However hard I
tried to catch him out. I know you might want
to keep it private, but just for us in your guts,
(41:01):
who do you suspect may have if your father was murdered?
Who could have mattered?
Speaker 1 (41:09):
I'm sorry, I cannot even to myself because it would
be cheating. Really, yes, because again I say, I like
to have things documented, proven tested, what have you? I
have never let myself into thinking, ah, really, because then
(41:35):
where does objectivity go? I'm sorry, very disappointing.
Speaker 7 (41:42):
But then I listened to the tape again and I
realized I'd missed something.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
But still I think that the must have been foul
playing as much as that he died in a strange
I mean, the pathology itself is a bit strange.
Speaker 7 (41:59):
So so there you have it. There must have been
foul play. How can foul play mean anything other than murder?
And as we were packing up, the royal siblings were chatting,
Maria Louisa suggested to her brother they may never find
out the truth until they die themselves and find themselves
(42:22):
in heaven or the other place.
Speaker 8 (42:25):
And we'll never know until we go up there. If
we go and find out really what it was.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
That's where we might find.
Speaker 8 (42:37):
Really some of the people who are down there, yes,
they know what it.
Speaker 7 (42:44):
Is six months on from that original interview. I want
to tell Maria Louisa what I've discovered. So I discussed
the idea of telling her with my producer e J.
She must want to know where we've got to with
this investigation, so it would be really interesting just to
say this is where we've got to.
Speaker 9 (43:05):
So you know, she called me.
Speaker 12 (43:06):
Oh really, her Royal Highness called me on the phone.
On the phone, this number came up that I didn't know,
and all of a sudden and it was her Royal Highness.
Speaker 7 (43:18):
Is there a reason why she didn't call me?
Speaker 8 (43:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (43:22):
I mean no, really was it just she liked you better?
Speaker 12 (43:25):
She heard about you using the King's comb Becky, oh
and almost you know, pushing that was you.
Speaker 7 (43:33):
No, I didn't do that.
Speaker 9 (43:34):
I didn't.
Speaker 7 (43:35):
It was to you, you.
Speaker 8 (43:38):
Talking to you.
Speaker 9 (43:39):
So she's only been calling me.
Speaker 7 (43:41):
Oh my god, it was you, wasn't it?
Speaker 9 (43:43):
It was you?
Speaker 7 (43:44):
For the record, it wasn't me. Anyway, here goes I
make the call and what we also turned out it
could be more specifically mushroom poisoning.
Speaker 8 (43:59):
It's first, we've never heard the mushroom version that you
are bringing up, So that's that's something totally new, and
I'd love to hear more about it.
Speaker 7 (44:10):
I tell Maria Luisa too about the recent death of
the Russian rocket scientist Vitalie Melnikov, who displeased Moscow and
who mysteriously died of suspected mushroom poisoning eighty years after
Boris's death. She's not surprised.
Speaker 8 (44:25):
Yeah, you are sure that the Russians are experts. Well,
we've seen it in the last years, how many people
they managed to poison or half poison, etc. I mean,
that's their specialty. That some mushroom powder might have been
put in his food that evening and he fell ill
after that and never you know, came back.
Speaker 7 (44:44):
That I believe precisely how they did it isn't really
important for Maria Louisa.
Speaker 8 (44:52):
They achieved what they wanted. If it's the mushrooms who
killed him, that's it. And you know.
Speaker 9 (45:00):
That's part of history, I.
Speaker 7 (45:02):
Guess, part of history, but a part of history that's
perhaps been overlooked forgotten. And I think King Boris's story
is an important one. Yes, there's a stain on his legacy.
There'll always be a question mark in some people's minds
over whether he could have done something to save the
(45:24):
eleven thousand Jews of Thrace and Macedonia. Over whether he
should have been more outspoken about the plight of the
Jews in Bulgaria itself, but no one can dispute one
fact that under Boris's watch, not a single Bulgarian Jew
was deported to the death camps for the country.
Speaker 8 (45:46):
He kept the Bulgaria out of the war, saved the population, save.
Speaker 9 (45:49):
The Jewish population.
Speaker 8 (45:50):
What more do you want?
Speaker 9 (45:52):
A saint is maybe too much, but the hero for sure.
Speaker 7 (45:56):
There's no doubt Boris's children loved him, and both Maria,
Luisa and Simeon have been deeply marked by their father's
sudden death. But how should history remember King Boris, the
third of Bulgaria. People have really strong opinions about the king.
He reigned in such difficult times, during the deadliest conflict
(46:17):
in human history. He was forced to make impossible choices
which were applauded by some and abhorred by others. Perhaps
that's why it's so hard to uncover the truth about
Boris's death, because even after eighty years, everyone, every witness
has an agenda, and everyone can vilify or exalt Boris's
(46:43):
story to match their own chosen narrative. There are historians
who admire King Boris's courage, his diplomacy, his kindness, while
others deplore his cowardice, his underhandedness, his indifference. Our historian
Tessa Dunlop has often been critical of Boris, but she
(47:06):
believes he has something important to teach us, particularly today.
Speaker 13 (47:12):
The headlines never really went big on Boris because he
was what we might call in today's terms, there's a
bit of a sort of techna crat monarch, a little
bit dull.
Speaker 7 (47:23):
She means, he was really into the nitty gritty, a
guy who liked detail.
Speaker 13 (47:28):
When we talk about today's world of nationalism, you know,
of populism, and if we want to understand how to
manage that nationalism, we need to not look at the
flamboyant figures, but actually at the techna crat monarchs like
Boris who managed to hold down the excesses on both
the left and the right. He's your model man in
(47:53):
an era of intolerant nationalism.
Speaker 7 (47:56):
And that's what's most important to Maria, Luisa and Simeon
that history will remember their father in context generously. I
think we've come close to solving the mysterious death of
Czar Boris the third as close as history will allow
(48:17):
us to come to us. He's King Boris to Maria Louisa.
He's her much missed papa.
Speaker 8 (48:25):
As a loving father and very patient father. But all
that other stuff you know about who and when you
know it doesn't change anything, you know we lost him.
So to dwell for eighty years over that subject, I
really don't. I pray for his soul. I feel him
(48:47):
very close many times, but.
Speaker 9 (48:52):
The rest is unfortunately history.
Speaker 7 (48:58):
Let's leave King Boris where he was happiest, at Varana Palace,
strolling in the grounds in his old floppy hat, waving
his butterfly net behind him. Two little children run barefoot
through the treeline, chasing their father's shadow. The Butterfly King
(49:56):
is a production of Blanchard's House and Exactly Write Me,
hosted by me Becky Milligan. It's written and produced by
Emma Jane Kirby. Original music is by Daniel Lloyd Evans,
Louis nank Manow and Toby Mattimoon. Sound design and engineering
by Toby Mattamong and Daniel Lloyd Evans. Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.
(50:22):
Voice acting by Mark umbers special thanks to Yona PEYOFSKA
and Vessovlav. The managing producer is a Mika Schortino No.
The creative director of Blanchard House is Rosie Pye. The
executive producer and head of Content at Blanchard House is
Lawrence Grizzel. For Exactly Right Media, the executive producers are
(50:47):
Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hardstark and Daniel Kramer, with consulting producer
Kyle Ryan. The Butterfly King is inspired by the book
Hitler and the King by John Hoole Spencer.
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Goodbye.
Speaker 7 (02:18):
The Royal Palace, Sofia August nineteen forty three and King
Boris is dining with a friend. The friends a tall
man about the same age as the King himself. From
the way he sits straight backed to his chair, you
(02:39):
can guess he's had a military past, and when he
stands up briefly to reach for the serving dish, it's
clear he has a stiff leg, a slight limp, probably
a war injury. It's just the two of them at
the table, a private dinner. The servants have been dismissed,
(03:01):
so it's the friend who offers the king a second
help him.
Speaker 8 (03:09):
I'm convinced that something was put into his soup. You know,
he had dinner with somebody alone and fell ill after
dinner suddenly.
Speaker 7 (03:19):
So who did he have dinner with?
Speaker 8 (03:21):
I think some assistant who worked with him.
Speaker 9 (03:26):
And fell after that.
Speaker 7 (03:30):
The friend's name is Jordan Sevov. He's an architect by trade,
but in the last year or so he's somehow become
the King's closest advisor. Other more experienced assistants have been
pushed out. Zevov's very comfortable in the royal presence, and
(03:50):
we can make an educated guess about what was in
that serving dish.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Nobody even remembered what the menu was, but my father
loved mushrooms, There's no doubt.
Speaker 7 (04:02):
So mushrooms the King's favorite dish. Was it mushrooms that
made Boris ill? Because that meal it turned out to
be the King's last supper. The next morning, Boris collapsed
and as he lay on his sick bed, doctors noticed
(04:23):
his skin was covered in those brown blotches we've heard about,
as if he'd been.
Speaker 8 (04:30):
Poisoned and never really recovered. That's all.
Speaker 7 (04:35):
It's a shocking possibility. Was the king betrayed by his
closest confidante from Blanchard House And exactly right, media, this
is the Butterfly King. I'm Becky Milligan, Chapter eight. The
(05:37):
rest is history. We're in Q in West London, not
far from the National Archives actually, where we began our
search for evidence about who killed Boris. But today we're
not looking for dusty old documents. We're looking for plants, poisons, plants,
(06:01):
or to be more precise, poisonous mushrooms, which is why
we're at CUES Royal Botanic Gardens, because it happens to
have the largest and most comprehensive fungy collection in the world.
Speaker 9 (06:14):
My work was mold.
Speaker 7 (06:17):
That's cue's senior researcher, Arena Droganina. And if you didn't
catch that, because I sure didn't, she said mold.
Speaker 9 (06:26):
Yes, I'm mold.
Speaker 7 (06:28):
You know, for a moment I thought you said molds,
and then I thought spies, and you thought something. We're
talking to someone in the spy world, all right, So molds.
Speaker 9 (06:38):
Molds so interesting, and of course also mushrooms.
Speaker 7 (06:43):
Arena works with all kinds of mushrooms, the good, the bad,
and the very bad.
Speaker 9 (06:51):
And those that produce antibiotics, and they also produce a
lot of toxins as well.
Speaker 7 (06:55):
Guess which mushrooms Arena's most keen.
Speaker 9 (06:58):
On the really deadly. The thing is that mushrooms they
usually have not a single toxin, but they have a
cocktail of toxins.
Speaker 7 (07:07):
In other words, if they get into the wrong hands
and the right mouth, poisonous mushrooms are pretty effective killers.
But there aren't as many lethal varieties as you might think.
Speaker 9 (07:19):
If we talk about all really deadly poisonous fungi that
can kill, there maybe less than one hundred.
Speaker 7 (07:29):
So if King Boris was poisoned by mushrooms, are there
any obvious suspects in that top one hundred?
Speaker 9 (07:37):
There is a particular poisonous one that is called Amanita followers.
Speaker 7 (07:42):
In plain English, it goes by the name of death cap. Basically,
the death cap does exactly what it says on the tin,
It kills you. Then there's another prime suspect.
Speaker 9 (07:55):
We can also talk about a very interesting and the
varied Jurus fungus that is called whip cup.
Speaker 7 (08:04):
So we have the webcap and the death cap, twin
toxins with a single murderous aim, and they're pretty commonplace.
Where do I find them.
Speaker 9 (08:15):
In the forest?
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Really?
Speaker 9 (08:17):
Any forests? Is any forest? Yeah? Why not? In Bulgaria
as well, of course.
Speaker 7 (08:23):
So somebody wanting to kill Boris, somebody like his architect
friend Sevov for example, would have had easy access to
deadly mushrooms. I mean, Arana Palace has its own mini forest.
We went walking in it with the King's aid Jarvil,
and guess what he pointed out.
Speaker 9 (08:43):
It's a fall of mushrooms in the garden.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
Now, But are.
Speaker 7 (08:47):
These lethal mushrooms easy to spot? What does a death
cap look like?
Speaker 9 (08:52):
That's usually peel in color, slightly greenish whiteish, and looking
similar to classical mushroom.
Speaker 7 (09:01):
Really, that's the ordinary mushroom that you'd chop up much
in an oblognmber.
Speaker 9 (09:06):
So there is this possibility to confuse them. Ah.
Speaker 7 (09:11):
Now that's interesting, and it makes me think I need
to consider a much less dramatic scenario. What if Boris
accidentally poisoned himself. We already know that Boris loved to
spend time in the forests among the flora and fauna,
looking for rare plants. Perhaps he also did a bit
(09:34):
of foraging. Now, Simeon told us that Boris was knowledgeable
about fungi.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
My father knew a lot about mushrooms.
Speaker 7 (09:42):
But Boris had a lot on his mind, the war,
the unhappy alliance with Hitler, how to protect Bulgaria's Jews.
Is it possible he just got distracted and picked her
poisonous mushroom by mistake, then on wittingly just handed it
to the Royal Cook. It's certainly possible, but Arena doesn't
(10:06):
believe that a botanist like Boris would make such a
basic error.
Speaker 9 (10:11):
If the person has an even superficial knowledge. I believe
that this mistake is very unlikely because usually people that
like to collect up big mushrooms in the forest, they
should know them, so they don't think the king do
this mistake.
Speaker 7 (10:27):
Okay, I think we can rule out Boris accidentally poisoning himself,
but that puts Boris's architect friend back in the frame.
I want to tell you a bit more about Jordan Seveov,
because there's definitely something fishy about him. In the last
(10:48):
three years of Boris's life, it was Severov who had
the king's ear, and he'd infiltrated the palace in the
most extraordinary way.
Speaker 9 (10:59):
Here's how happened.
Speaker 7 (11:02):
When Boris married Queen Giovanna and she moved into Varana Palace.
The king's sister Eudoxia, felt well a bit of a
spare part, so she decided to move out, and it
was the well known Bulgarian architect Jordan Sevov, who was
(11:22):
commissioned to build a villa for Eudoxia. Suddenly Sevov found
himself at the heart of the royal circle, and once
the war started, Sevov frequently began showing up at the
palace unannounced for private audiences with King Boris, and Boris
(11:43):
really took to him. He was impressed by Sevov's intelligence.
He started to ask Sevov's opinion on the political dilemmas
of the day, and it wasn't long before he began
asking Sevov for his advice. The king's other aids and
advisers felt squeezed out, and they started to become seriously worried.
(12:07):
In fact, Sevov had such power over King Boris that
behind his back people called him the Bulgarian Rasputin. He
came to the palace whenever he chose to. He practically
had his own key. But here's the thing. It turns
out that Sevov was a staunch admirer of Germany and
(12:31):
of Hitler. Now, the royal children grew up in difficult times,
murderous times when trust was hard to come by, so
they'd been schooled in keeping stum. Whenever there were any
visitors at home.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
What I remember is that mother will tell us that, well,
we just should know how to keep our mouth shut,
But I think it was more for is anybody Eves
dropping over?
Speaker 7 (13:06):
Did the Queen suspect that Sevov was not entirely trustworthy?
Was sev Off being paid to infiltrate royal circles? Boris
had fallen out with Hitler, remember, So is it possible
that Severov bumped off Boris maybe to hand power to
(13:27):
his brother Kirol, who might be more sympathetic. The reason
I say that is because just a few weeks after
Boris died, Kirol went to meet Hitler. It's really eerie
watching the newsreels Boris's little brother, downcast, walking in his
(13:49):
big brother's footsteps, saluting the Fura. It's particularly chilling because
Kirol and Boris look incredibly alike. You can only really
tell them apart because Kirol's wearing a black armband. You
almost feel like you're watching a ghost. So did the
(14:12):
Nazis hope Kirol would be more pliant to their demands?
Did they think the little brother would be easier to
manipulate once their big brother was out of the way.
It sounds plausible. So let's return to the night in question.
That supper. One thing is nagging me about it. I mean,
(14:36):
kings have food tasters, don't they.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
No, no, no, never never. This was the sort of
Roman days.
Speaker 7 (14:47):
I think he means Julius Caesar might have had a
food taster, but the King of Bulgaria not so much.
Turns out Boris was pretty lax about his personal security,
and also.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
He liked to move around, I mean without any fuss
or bodyguards or what have you, which is so necessary nowadays.
The only rule he had he would never return on
the same route that he had gone to a place,
because he had had a tence on his life.
Speaker 7 (15:19):
But if Boris was poisoned, wouldn't it have been pretty
obvious to him? I mean, doesn't a toxic toadstool taste
pretty foul? Arena georg Nina is our mycologist or mushroom expert.
Speaker 9 (15:32):
Some poisonous found They are known to have some bitter tastes,
but these ones that are really poisonous, they had tasteless.
Speaker 7 (15:40):
They're tasteless. They don't even taste that. You can't die
having had a beautiful mushroom pie or something. It'd just
be a tasteless mess. God, how awful I know. I'm
getting carried away again. But of course, what Arena really
means is that the deathly mushrooms would have been undetectable.
The king just wouldn't have known. Tis them mixed into
(16:01):
a saucer a pie he'd have tucked in as usual
with Gusto. So time to ask Arena. The crucial question
is mushroom poisoning though a reliable way to kill someone
to carry out a murder.
Speaker 9 (16:16):
Yes, it is reliable. They could increase the concentration and
make a powder, of course, because for the dead cup
you need only a quarter of the cup to kill person.
Speaker 7 (16:29):
So seven of could have even sprinkled a toxic mushroom
powder onto the food. And what's more, those killer mushrooms
cover their tracks like nothing else, because you can eat one,
feel a bit dodgy for about twenty four hours, and
then feel fine again until it's way way too late.
Speaker 9 (16:50):
They are very dangerous because the poisoning appears sometimes two
weeks or three weeks after the.
Speaker 7 (17:01):
Poisoning, so several could have slipped Boris that poison weeks
before the last supper. He was a regular at the
royal dinner table. But how come the doctors didn't clock
that Boris had food poisoning. I mean, that's pretty basic
first aid, isn't it asking someone what they've eaten? And
the symptoms of mushroom poisoning include nausea, headache, flushing, and
(17:26):
heart palpitations.
Speaker 9 (17:28):
It's really difficult to prove because you know, you film seek,
you see the doctor, and doctor asked, what did you
do yesterday? What did you did they before? But nobody
asks you what did you two weeks ago or three
weeks ago or a month ago? Right, yeah, they did.
They would just say, oh, heart attack.
Speaker 7 (17:46):
They wouldn't have detected the mushroom toxins they did. That's
very interesting because they could get away with murder.
Speaker 9 (17:55):
Whoever it was. Yep, have I just solved that murder?
Speaker 7 (18:01):
Was it the architect sevov On behalf of the Nazis
in the dining room with toxic mushrooms? In theory, that
seems perfectly possible. But did he really have the opportunity
to orchestrate his murderous plan?
Speaker 9 (18:17):
Obviously you have to administer it.
Speaker 7 (18:19):
Well, yes, that's because they could just push that little
bit of the nice pasta with that lovely mushroom source
to one side and stick to the potatoes and then
what do you do?
Speaker 9 (18:29):
Because comedy of errors there have you get rid of it?
Speaker 7 (18:32):
Then the problem is Sevov would need to have eaten
exactly the same dish as the king, or the king
would have become suspicious. So if Sevov ate the same
thing as the king, how come he didn't die too?
I guess it's possible he took an antidote, except Erna
(18:55):
tells me there are no reliable antidotes for death cap
or webcap mushrooms. Even today, I'm starting to feel less convinced.
And isn't it all a bit too convenient? Because there's
a very real possibility that Sevov was framed. The other
(19:19):
palisades were jealous of him. They hated his influence, his
bad influence as they saw it, over their beloved king.
So when Boris died, a rumor began to spread, a
rumor that Sevov had been found at home counting out
gold bars Nazi blood money for bumping off Boris. Simeon
(19:45):
thinks that's all buncom buncom put out by the communists.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Afterwards, the propaganda tried, to, of course blame him for
all sorts of things and said that they were in
goods of Nazi gold with the what you call it,
the swastika, as though the Nazis, if they had poisoned
my father, would be that idiotic as to give it
(20:12):
with their signature on it.
Speaker 7 (20:14):
Well, come to think of it, I suppose it does
sound a bit like a bad movie, A tad obvious.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
That you know, that's all part of propaganda, which people
who are in this propaganda things sometimes think that the
rest of human beings are idiots because they try and
sell such absurdities. But they drumm it in, drummat in,
drummat in, and finally it sort of becomes half truth.
Speaker 7 (20:40):
Point taken, I'm ruling out seven and the Nazis, but
the mushrooms, I have to say, I'm now certain that
was how Boris was killed. As for who did it, well,
I now have a very clear idea, and we'll come
(21:01):
back to that very soon.
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Speaker 7 (24:16):
I want to pause our murder investigation for a moment
because I need to tie up some other loose ends.
We've been focused on Boris's murder, but Simeon and Maria
Luisa have lived whole lifetime since then, long and extraordinary lifetimes,
despite being haunted by their father's death. So you'll remember
(24:42):
that a year after Boris died in nineteen forty three,
the Red Army marched into Bulgaria. Simeon and Maria Louisa
were seven and eleven years old. The Soviets promptly shot
most of Boris's old government and the royal household, including
Kiro and several actually poor Queen Giovanna and her children
(25:04):
were pretty much kept under house arrest, and then in
September nineteen forty six, a referendum, albeit heavily rigged, abolished
the monarchy. Bulgaria was declared a republic and the queen
and her children were asked to leave the country. Asked
to leave is a bit of a euphemism, let's face it,
(25:26):
they didn't really have a choice. At first, the royal
trio went to Alexandria in Egypt, where the queen's own
father was also in exile. Later, General Franco, the nationalist
dictator of Spain, granted them asylum, so the family settled there.
(25:47):
Simeon stayed and Maria Louisa eventually married and moved to
New York, but their hearts stayed firmly in Bulgaria. They
wondered if they would ever be able to go home.
Speaker 8 (25:59):
Oh, it's hopped one. They were against hope. And then
one day the Vilin Wall fell in eighty nine, and
shortly thereafter the Bulgarians got rid of that regime, and
the possibility was there.
Speaker 7 (26:15):
After the war came down, communist regimes across Eastern Europe collapsed.
Simeon was desperate to return to his homeland, to his kingdom, Bulgaria.
But Simeon knew he had to be cautious. He had
no idea how he'd be received so many years after
he'd left. Would he be welcomed or met with hostility?
(26:38):
During Maria Louisa and Simeon's exile, the Communists had painted
a dark picture of the royal family. The Bulgarians were
told they were thieves who didn't care a jot about Bulgaria.
Simeon was made out to be an arch villain.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
People were told all kinds of derogatory or hostiles or silence.
Speaker 7 (27:02):
When Simeon thought about returning home after half a century
of absence, he wondered if anyone would even show up.
So in nineteen ninety one he sent a special envoy
to test the water to see how the Bulgarian people,
newly emerged from the Iron Curtain would react to blue
blood in the country. And Simeon knew just the right
(27:26):
person for the job.
Speaker 8 (27:29):
So my brother called me and said to me, how
would you like to to go? And I said, by
my God, And then it came through.
Speaker 7 (27:40):
Maria Louisa arrived at night. The remnants of the old
Communist regime were not happy. The old Party loyalist turned
off all the street lamps from the airport to Sofia
to make her journey as difficult as possible. Not a
good omen perhaps, but the Bulgarian people felt very differently.
(28:04):
They lined the streets, waving torches and lighting her path
with bonfires. Remember the last time Maria Louisa had seen
her homeland, she was just thirteen years old.
Speaker 8 (28:17):
The crowds were unbelievable. I never expected anybody to sort of,
you know, remember anything, because it's almost two generations, fifty years,
it's two generations. And I went out on not on
the balcony like the queen, but on a terrace and
said to them, you know, you're not here for me
because I was a child, but you remember my parents,
(28:41):
and it's the love for my parents that you are
here applauding. It's very moving, very very moving. It was
an unbelievable, you know, dream that came through.
Speaker 7 (28:54):
And then in nineteen ninety six it was her brother's turn.
When the people learned Simeon had touched down, the bells
of Alexander Nevsky Cathedral rang out in his honor the
last time Simeon had heard those bells. He was six
years old, a little boy in shorts and white knee socks,
(29:18):
trying not to cry at his father's funeral.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Actually it's I mean, Paradoxica got such such a joy.
But the sound of those bells was when my father died.
So there was a sudden return to precisely that very
sad moment in forty three. They realized that it brought
me back, all of a sudden, with half his century
(29:42):
for a few.
Speaker 7 (29:42):
Minutes, the boy King finally returned home, aged fifty nine.
Even now, Simeon stares at the ground when I ask
him about that moment. He's still humbled by the welcome
he received.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
To me, it was a a very personal moment. It
was unbelievably or undescribably moving, because after all fifty years
in exile, finally to set foot back on the country
when I was born in.
Speaker 7 (30:17):
Watching the news footage is incredible. Crowds literally weep for joy.
Women run alongside Sameon's train, crossing flowers into his hands.
It's as if they're welcoming the Messiah or King Boris himself.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
One of the major factors was that it was Boris's son,
the Little King Who's coming back. You see, it was
a tremendous reception. Nobody had expected this, and it was
really quite extraordinary.
Speaker 7 (30:50):
Sounds like a fairy tale ending, doesn't it? A happily
ever after? Except this was only the beginning. Simeon's homecoming
wasn't plain sailing after fifty years behind the Iron curtain.
He knew Bulgaria certainly didn't have the stomach for another monarchy.
(31:14):
He knew he couldn't claim the throne again.
Speaker 9 (31:17):
And I thought, that's not fair.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
These people have been fifty years under a totalitarian system,
So fifty years of such a system. Who am I
to tell them? Look, guys, my system is better. Let's
have it go.
Speaker 7 (31:34):
But people really believed the Little King, as he was
still known, could help them. Simeon had spent his exile
largely in Spain. He was a Westerner. He'd done military
training in Pennsylvania, He'd worked in finance in Europe. The
Bulgarians felt sure he'd be able to turn their fortunes around,
(31:55):
and Simeon, well, Simeon wanted to help. He wanted to
continue his father's legacy. It's what he felt. He was
born for the sense.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Of duty is something which is hammered into us that
one can or should help one's country. It's part of
the monarchs thinking. It might sound old fashioned, but that's
what it is.
Speaker 7 (32:21):
Okay, there's something I've kept back from you, but I'll
let Simeon tell you himself.
Speaker 5 (32:28):
No way.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Want to sound derogatory, but I I demoted myself by
becoming prime minister.
Speaker 7 (32:35):
Yep, you heard that correctly. In the summer of two
thousand and one, King Simeon On, a landslide victory, became
Bulgaria's Prime minister. His party was called the National Movement
for Stability and Progress. He helped Bulgaria become a member
of NATO and paved the way for Bulgaria to join
(32:56):
the European Union. So at first things went well, and
then they didn't. The Bulgarians wanted much more progress than
they got. They wanted a big boost to their living standards,
but that didn't happen. So in two thousand and five
Simeon was ousted as prime minister and his party became
(33:19):
a junior partner in a coalition government. Four years later,
his party failed to win any seats at all, and
Simeon resigned from politics.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
The fact that we had a democracy is this ancient,
and the fact that we're in the Eel is just
as important.
Speaker 7 (33:37):
But there was another problem. You'll remember that when the
Royal siblings went into exile, the Communist Party nationalized all
their palaces and properties. Simeon and Maria Louisa wanted them back,
so they went to the European Court of Human Rights,
and that infuriated many Bulgarians. They argued, Siman was only
(34:00):
interested in enriching himself, not his people. Simeon's hurt by that.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
We serve, we don't dules the system for ourselves.
Speaker 7 (34:14):
The Royal siblings lost their court case. They didn't get
all their palaces back, but they got the one they
really wanted, Varana Palace, King Boris's sanctuary, the place where
he loved to spend time with his two little children.
Maria Louisa and Simeon right back to who killed King Boris,
(34:41):
the question that Maria Luisa and Simeon have never stopped asking. Well,
there's been a development, because something rather extraordinaries happened. Back
in the summer of twenty twenty three, Russia launched her
first lunar mission in nearly fifty years. It was a
(35:04):
pretty big deal in terms of national pride. The unmanned
spacecraft was due to land on the south side of
the Moon, but the rocket crashed the mission ended in
complete failure. It was a massive blow for Russia's prestige.
(35:28):
Fast forward a few weeks and the man responsible for
that embarrassment suddenly finds himself gravely ill. In hospital for
two weeks, leading space scientist Vitalie Melnikoff battled a very
strange illness, and then he died, and Russian state media
(35:52):
reported he died of mushroom poisoning. Sounds very suspicious to me,
and very familiar. In recent years there's been a huge
spate of mysterious deaths in Russia. But Irina George Nina
are mushroom expert, believes she knows where the inspiration came.
Speaker 9 (36:15):
From these attempts to poison. They all come from the
Cold War KGB. And I think that all started before
the World War Two. I think that all started in
late thirties for sure.
Speaker 7 (36:29):
Why does she think that? Well, remember what our Bulgarian
historian George Bosdiganov told us.
Speaker 11 (36:36):
From ninety thirty eight to nineteen fifty three, the anchovied
that's Ursian Special Service maintained two laboratories for the production
of deadly poisonous toxicological one and bacteriological one.
Speaker 7 (36:51):
And remember those laboratories had a specific brief, not just
to silence Stalin's enemies, but to do.
Speaker 9 (36:59):
It without leaving any traces.
Speaker 7 (37:03):
In other words, they fatally poisoned people and made it
look like their victims had died of a heart attack,
which is of course what's written on King Boris's death certificate.
And it turns out our mushroom expert, Arena, who's based
(37:23):
at the Royal Botanic Gardens in London, knows quite a
lot about those poison laboratories.
Speaker 9 (37:30):
They're all laboratories sell with very bad intentions.
Speaker 7 (37:33):
Very bad intentions indeed, and Irena should know. She's Russian.
She knew people, not friends of hers, who worked in
those labs. That's how she knows they were specifically working
on mushrooms. Yes, mushrooms, and believe crime related to mushrooms
(37:55):
are connected to mushrooms. Irena thinks that in their seats
pre war laboratories, the Soviets were tinkering with fungy toxins,
making them more concentrated, trying to mimic them, basically creating
a chemical weapon based on mushrooms, perhaps one that was
(38:17):
fit to kill a king.
Speaker 9 (38:19):
I think the Russians they maybe learned from nature about
the docksins and tried to optimize them and synthesize something similar.
Speaker 7 (38:29):
Okay, deep breath, I'm going to ask Arena outright, So,
knowing what you know about the KGB, the laboratories and
so on, and what we've told you about Boris and
how he died all those symptoms, do you think he
was murdered?
Speaker 9 (38:48):
I cannot exclude this could be, it could be. Can
I cannot exclude.
Speaker 7 (38:55):
This, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to call it. After
months of investigation, I believe King Boris was murdered by
the Soviets. Boris's murder as the Soviet hallmark stamped all
over it. They had the means, and with their embassy
(39:16):
next to the palace, the Soviets had plenty of opportunity
to slip the synthetic mushroom poison into the king's food
or drink. As for their motive, remember, Stalin dreamed of
spreading communism across Eastern Europe and Bulgaria was a vital
foothold for anyone trying to consolidate their power in the region.
(39:40):
The only problem was that there was a king in
the way, a very popular king, and if it was
the Soviets, the plan worked. Just one year after the
king's death, the Red Army marched into Sofia and the
Iron Curtain swallowed up bulgar So I believe King Boris
(40:05):
was murdered by the Soviets or by the Bulgarian communists
with help from the Soviets, using synthetic mushroom based poisons
from those dreadful chemical weapons labs. That certainly coincides with
Maria Louisa's suspicions when I spoke to her a few
(40:25):
months ago, when she said that she was convinced something
had been put in the king's soup, and about who
she thought did it.
Speaker 8 (40:34):
Who had the greatest advantage, who gets rid of him
the Soviet Union.
Speaker 7 (40:41):
But although Simeon admits he has questions over his father's death,
he wouldn't point the finger at anyone. He wouldn't even
allow himself to say the word murder. However hard I
tried to catch him out. I know you might want
to keep it private, but just for us in your guts,
(41:01):
who do you suspect may have if your father was murdered?
Who could have mattered?
Speaker 1 (41:09):
I'm sorry, I cannot even to myself because it would
be cheating. Really, yes, because again I say, I like
to have things documented, proven tested, what have you? I
have never let myself into thinking, ah, really, because then
(41:35):
where does objectivity go? I'm sorry, very disappointing.
Speaker 7 (41:42):
But then I listened to the tape again and I
realized I'd missed something.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
But still I think that the must have been foul
playing as much as that he died in a strange
I mean, the pathology itself is a bit strange.
Speaker 7 (41:59):
So so there you have it. There must have been
foul play. How can foul play mean anything other than murder?
And as we were packing up, the royal siblings were chatting,
Maria Louisa suggested to her brother they may never find
out the truth until they die themselves and find themselves
(42:22):
in heaven or the other place.
Speaker 8 (42:25):
And we'll never know until we go up there. If
we go and find out really what it was.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
That's where we might find.
Speaker 8 (42:37):
Really some of the people who are down there, yes,
they know what it.
Speaker 7 (42:44):
Is six months on from that original interview. I want
to tell Maria Louisa what I've discovered. So I discussed
the idea of telling her with my producer e J.
She must want to know where we've got to with
this investigation, so it would be really interesting just to
say this is where we've got to.
Speaker 9 (43:05):
So you know, she called me.
Speaker 12 (43:06):
Oh really, her Royal Highness called me on the phone.
On the phone, this number came up that I didn't know,
and all of a sudden and it was her Royal Highness.
Speaker 7 (43:18):
Is there a reason why she didn't call me?
Speaker 8 (43:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (43:22):
I mean no, really was it just she liked you better?
Speaker 12 (43:25):
She heard about you using the King's comb Becky, oh
and almost you know, pushing that was you.
Speaker 7 (43:33):
No, I didn't do that.
Speaker 9 (43:34):
I didn't.
Speaker 7 (43:35):
It was to you, you.
Speaker 8 (43:38):
Talking to you.
Speaker 9 (43:39):
So she's only been calling me.
Speaker 7 (43:41):
Oh my god, it was you, wasn't it?
Speaker 9 (43:43):
It was you?
Speaker 7 (43:44):
For the record, it wasn't me. Anyway, here goes I
make the call and what we also turned out it
could be more specifically mushroom poisoning.
Speaker 8 (43:59):
It's first, we've never heard the mushroom version that you
are bringing up, So that's that's something totally new, and
I'd love to hear more about it.
Speaker 7 (44:10):
I tell Maria Luisa too about the recent death of
the Russian rocket scientist Vitalie Melnikov, who displeased Moscow and
who mysteriously died of suspected mushroom poisoning eighty years after
Boris's death. She's not surprised.
Speaker 8 (44:25):
Yeah, you are sure that the Russians are experts. Well,
we've seen it in the last years, how many people
they managed to poison or half poison, etc. I mean,
that's their specialty. That some mushroom powder might have been
put in his food that evening and he fell ill
after that and never you know, came back.
Speaker 7 (44:44):
That I believe precisely how they did it isn't really
important for Maria Louisa.
Speaker 8 (44:52):
They achieved what they wanted. If it's the mushrooms who
killed him, that's it. And you know.
Speaker 9 (45:00):
That's part of history, I.
Speaker 7 (45:02):
Guess, part of history, but a part of history that's
perhaps been overlooked forgotten. And I think King Boris's story
is an important one. Yes, there's a stain on his legacy.
There'll always be a question mark in some people's minds
over whether he could have done something to save the
(45:24):
eleven thousand Jews of Thrace and Macedonia. Over whether he
should have been more outspoken about the plight of the
Jews in Bulgaria itself, but no one can dispute one
fact that under Boris's watch, not a single Bulgarian Jew
was deported to the death camps for the country.
Speaker 8 (45:46):
He kept the Bulgaria out of the war, saved the population, save.
Speaker 9 (45:49):
The Jewish population.
Speaker 8 (45:50):
What more do you want?
Speaker 9 (45:52):
A saint is maybe too much, but the hero for sure.
Speaker 7 (45:56):
There's no doubt Boris's children loved him, and both Maria,
Luisa and Simeon have been deeply marked by their father's
sudden death. But how should history remember King Boris, the
third of Bulgaria. People have really strong opinions about the king.
He reigned in such difficult times, during the deadliest conflict
(46:17):
in human history. He was forced to make impossible choices
which were applauded by some and abhorred by others. Perhaps
that's why it's so hard to uncover the truth about
Boris's death, because even after eighty years, everyone, every witness
has an agenda, and everyone can vilify or exalt Boris's
(46:43):
story to match their own chosen narrative. There are historians
who admire King Boris's courage, his diplomacy, his kindness, while
others deplore his cowardice, his underhandedness, his indifference. Our historian
Tessa Dunlop has often been critical of Boris, but she
(47:06):
believes he has something important to teach us, particularly today.
Speaker 13 (47:12):
The headlines never really went big on Boris because he
was what we might call in today's terms, there's a
bit of a sort of techna crat monarch, a little
bit dull.
Speaker 7 (47:23):
She means, he was really into the nitty gritty, a
guy who liked detail.
Speaker 13 (47:28):
When we talk about today's world of nationalism, you know,
of populism, and if we want to understand how to
manage that nationalism, we need to not look at the
flamboyant figures, but actually at the techna crat monarchs like
Boris who managed to hold down the excesses on both
the left and the right. He's your model man in
(47:53):
an era of intolerant nationalism.
Speaker 7 (47:56):
And that's what's most important to Maria, Luisa and Simeon
that history will remember their father in context generously. I
think we've come close to solving the mysterious death of
Czar Boris the third as close as history will allow
(48:17):
us to come to us. He's King Boris to Maria Louisa.
He's her much missed papa.
Speaker 8 (48:25):
As a loving father and very patient father. But all
that other stuff you know about who and when you
know it doesn't change anything, you know we lost him.
So to dwell for eighty years over that subject, I
really don't. I pray for his soul. I feel him
(48:47):
very close many times, but.
Speaker 9 (48:52):
The rest is unfortunately history.
Speaker 7 (48:58):
Let's leave King Boris where he was happiest, at Varana Palace,
strolling in the grounds in his old floppy hat, waving
his butterfly net behind him. Two little children run barefoot
through the treeline, chasing their father's shadow. The Butterfly King
(49:56):
is a production of Blanchard's House and Exactly Write Me,
hosted by me Becky Milligan. It's written and produced by
Emma Jane Kirby. Original music is by Daniel Lloyd Evans,
Louis nank Manow and Toby Mattimoon. Sound design and engineering
by Toby Mattamong and Daniel Lloyd Evans. Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.
(50:22):
Voice acting by Mark umbers special thanks to Yona PEYOFSKA
and Vessovlav. The managing producer is a Mika Schortino No.
The creative director of Blanchard House is Rosie Pye. The
executive producer and head of Content at Blanchard House is
Lawrence Grizzel. For Exactly Right Media, the executive producers are
(50:47):
Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hardstark and Daniel Kramer, with consulting producer
Kyle Ryan. The Butterfly King is inspired by the book
Hitler and the King by John Hoole Spencer.
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