The Grand Lodge of Ancient Free & Accepted Masons of Bulgaria considers that, as the mother of all the regular Grand Lodges in Bulgaria, is called upon to provide information and clarification about the essence of Freemasonry. For this reason, you can access the following Masonic discource:
“I am convinced that the Supreme Counsel and the Permanent World counsel, which only aim to take care of the universal prosperity, will achieve their sacred goal before the end of this 20th century!” – these were the prophetic words of the Bulgarian engineer Nicolas Dymcoff, which were said in the first days of September 1918 in the capital Tzarigrad of the Turkish Empire in front of the editor of newspaper “Pharos” that was published there. The reason for the meeting and their whole conversation was written down by engineer Nicolas Dymcoff at the end of 1916 and the beginning of 1917 in the book “Star of the Consent” (from French – “Etoile de la Conccorde”), which represents an original and grounded project for the creation of a world organization for peace and cooperation between all states, nations, and religions. Nicolas Dymcoff published his project in French, German, Turkish, and Greek, and through the foreign embassies in Tzarigrad, he sent it to many state and governmental representatives, including the president of the USA at that time – Thomas Woodrow Wilson. This happened at the time when USA still had not been involved in the First World War and the famous Wilson’s Fourteen Points for the post-war settlement of the world and the creation of the United Nations had still not existed. And the biographer of Thomas Wilson (Mr. Beker) later gave evidences that this idea was not of the president, but it was loaned from others.
In his project Nicolas Dymcoff suggested the creation of a Permanent World Council that would examine “the means, needed for keeping peace and agreement between all nations in the world”. In an interview with the editor of the Greek newspaper “Pharos”, printed as a supplement to the Second edition of “The Star of Consent”, N. Dymcoff continued to develop his idea for the arrangement and the structure of the Permanent Council. Excluding the three main councils, the author suggested the council to be subdivided into around twenty supreme bureaus, which would deal with the internal structure of the council, the world security and demilitarization, the relations between religions, the issues of the nations’ minorities, the world jurisdiction, education and culture, health services, agriculture, industry, trade, labor, and others. Even if these formulations are very cursorily compared to the statute of the today’s United Nations, we could easily notice some remarkable similarities not only in the general idea, but also in the concrete structure and function of the organization.
The project of Nicolas Dymcoff is an impressive Bulgarian contribution to the creation and the work and activities of today’s world organization for peace and security. His ideas gained realization relatively recently when over Europe and the world has been established the sincere desire for unity regarding any universal values and virtues.
The information that follows is about engineer Nicolas Dymcoff and for the purpose of this information bulletin, the information was collected from more than fifteen Bulgarian and foreign sources.
WHO IS ENGINEER NICOLAS DYMCOFF?
Nicolas Dymcoff was born on the 6th of December 1859 in one big Bulgarian village in Sersko – Gorno Brodi, which at that time was still part of the Ottoman empire (today the village is called Ano Vrondy, Greece). Nicolas Dymcoff was the third child in the family of the eminent Dimko Halembakov, who was part of a prestigious Bulgarian national revival’s clan. Nicolas studied in his native village and in the high-school in Plovdiv which he graduated with excellent marks. In 1880, he was sent by the director of the Plovdiv high-school to study Engineering in the Supreme Technical Institute in Chalon Sur Mer, close to Paris. Even during the time he was still a student, he received several patents for inventions. In 1883 he graduated the institute for three years instead of the standard five years. His professors offered him to stay for a science research in a university in Paris, but he refused to them and returned to Bulgaria, which was just liberated.
He settled in liberated Bulgaria and started work at the Bulgarian Ministry of Infrastructure and Electro Communications as a Head of the Railway Directorate. Later he participated in the Parliamentary Commission for Negotiating the Delivery of Ships for the Bulgarian navy. He was also part of a project for the connection of railway line Vienna – Tzarigrad between Vakarel and Belovo and during this project, Nicolas invented a special protection for the train workers. However, due to economic reasons at that time his model for protection of train workers was rejected, but in the next years, the invention was bought by many national and private firms and companies in Germany, UK, France, and Italy. Nicolas settled in Tzarigrad and he gained popularity with another project for automatic interconnection of shipping composition. This design was personally rejected by Sultan Abdul Hamid and Dymcoff had to be arrested. Thus, Dymcoff was supposed to hide for a long time among the Bulgarian community in the town, but after his design was bought by enterprising Europeans from the UK, Italy, and France, Dymcoff‘s name was finally cleaned.
For many years, Dymcoff was active as a discoverer: he has many world patents for technological inventions – sticks for carriages, mechanisms for loading – unloading cargos and many others. Being extremely enterprising, he ended up in Tzarigrad where he founded a factory for horseshoes and wedges – an industry, which although might not seem so important to a contemporary man, was very often mentioned and highly praised by the European press at that time. With the financial help of his fellow student from Paris, Mr. Stoyan Danev, Dymcoff founded a factory for manufacturing of horseshoes where he managed to adopt his invention for automatic convey into the process of manufacturing. At that time, the Prime Minister Todor Burmov got deeply interested of Dymcoff’s invention for automatic convey. The Prime Minister of Bulgaria secured a state loan of 20 000 Golden Lev for Nicolas Dymcoff and he became an equivalent partner in the factory for horseshoes “Engineer Nicolas Dymcoff & Co.” in Tzarigrad. Moreover, at this time this factory was the first one where Dymcoff brought in diesel engines and later, electric engines.
Nicolas Dymcoff was a very capable machine engineer, well-knowledgeable person, mastering many Western and Eastern languages. He was respected and sought-after. He was a highly acknowledged Bulgarian, patron of the unprivileged, defender of the humiliated ones, humanist and philanthropist, who never sought only for private wealth. His main responsibility was taking care of the workers in his fabrics. All machineries were safeguarded and secured and the illiterate workers were not afraid to work with them. Also, Dymcoff paid for the creation of a dining room for his workers and was giving them working clothes for free.
The Bulgarians in Tzarigrad chose Dymcoff for an advisor of Exarch Joseph I and as a part of the Bulgarian Exarchate in Tzarigrad, Dymcoff actively participated in the life of the Bulgarian community there. He was proclaimed for an honorary citizen of the Ottoman Empire. He got married in Tzarigrad to a woman from Skopje, whose name was Ekaterina Trajkova.
He was deeply interested in history and he managed to redeem from Turkey many Bulgarian archive materials, including the documents from the trial of Vasil Levski (the most famous Bulgarian revolutionary for the liberation of Bulgaria).
His life ended up in an absurd way – on the 30th of March 1937, Nicolas Dymcoff was hit by a car in Tzarigrad. The whole Bulgarian community in Tzarigrad attended his funeral. (On the picture – Eng. Nicolas Dymcoff at the age of 70)
Nicolas Dymcoff is an uncle of the famous Bulgarian medic Petar Dymcoff.
The official celebration of engineer Nicolas Dymcoff in Bulgaria was performed for the first time on 24.10.1989 in Blagoevgrad for the 130th anniversary of his birth. In 2009 we celebrated 150 years of the birth of this prominent and famous Bulgarian.
> GORNO BRODI AND THE CLAN HALEMBAKOVI
Gorno Brodi – a Source of Bulgarian Spirit
In the Southern part of Pirin mountain, between the mountain chains of Cherna Gora, Sharalia, and Zmiinitza, at 1100 meters altitude, is situated a big ancient Bulgarian village, called Gorno Brodi.
The narrow distance between the mountains Sharalia and Zmiinitza is the only slit through which the waters of the Gorno Brodi river can flow out to the field. This narrow slit is the only mountain ford through which one can enter in the wonderful recess of Gorno Brodi village – a buried and fascinating beautiful place.
The waters of the Gorno Brodi river that come from the mountain Cherna Gora were dragging down to the village lots of black sand, full with magnetite from which the villagers obtained iron.
In this wonderful piece of land in the mountain the inhabitants of Gorno Brodi developed many crafts and preserved to the highest rate the Bulgarian name, the Bulgarian liberty-loving spirit, the traditional diligence and the pure love for the motherland.
In Gorno Brodi village were born many Bulgarian heroes – Hadji Dimko Hadjiivanov, Dimko Stoianov Halembakov, Georgi Zhilev, Voivode Ziumbil, Voivode Georgi Radev, Atanas Sveshtarov (part of Hristo Botev’s group), Dimo Hadjidimov, Dimitar Shimbalakov, Ivan Smatrakalev, Georgi Badjarov, Atanas Nikov, Georgi Stamboliev, the glorious Kipra Shopkina and many other national sons and daughters.
Mainly responsible for transforming Gorno Brodi village into a source of Bulgarian national spirit is the person named Hadji Dimko Hadjiivanov, who had been a many year non-replaced mayor of the village in the 30s of the 18th century and to Dimko Stoianov Halembakov, the tax collector of the village.
The two clans of Hadjidimkovi and Halembakovi divided among themselves the spheres of activities – Hadjidimkovi were in charge of the administrative, spiritual and cultural development of the village, which meant that they were responsible for the commune, school, and the church. Halembakovi on the other hand created and developed an economic sphere for many new crafts, mostly based on iron-stone manufacturing and trade.
These two clans were the organizers and inspirers of the patriotic and public spirited society of Gorno Brodi and they were living in full harmony and agreement with each other. During the revolutionary fight against the Ottoman feudal tyranny and its attempts to infringe the Bulgarian schools and churches, the two clans collaborated and together, they stood all sufferings, fines, beatings (some of them were imprisoned in Ser and Thessaloniki) by the Turkish authorities. Thus, the two clans became a tough structure of the revolutionary, craftsman, and the cultural life of the village.
This atmosphere brought together all residents of the village in indestructible unity and strong national patriarchal spirit.
Gorno Brodi village was increasing its population, developing even further its economy and it was turning into one of the most prominent Bulgarian villages, symbol of the strong national spirit. Based on a tax document / taken from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences/ at the end of 1844 there were 753 families with 8 862 residents of the village – this means that in each house there were approximately 12 people.
Dimko Stoianov Halembakov must also receive special merits for the strengthening of the “small village republic” since he was the first iron-stone manufacturer, who started to obtain “samokov iron” from Gorno Brodi village.
Dimko Halembakov had five sons – Dimitar ( born 1853), Nikola ( born 1859), Georgi ( born 1861), Atanas ( 1865), Hristo ( 1874), and two daughters – Geveza ( 1857) and Katerina ( 1863).
Being an extremely talented master, the old Dimkov involved all of his sons in his profession. Since their youth, they were often visiting the workshop of their father so they could help him and learn the craft. The young manufacturers of iron-stone soon became better than their father and reached a proficiency level in their work. Dimko and his sons helped in the development of five basic craft classes: “rudari”, “vuglari”, “peshcheri”, “samokovari” and “kuznari”. The talents of Dimkov’s sons emerged into the creation of the first lathe (machinery tool) in Gorno Brodi village. Their enterprise way of thinking and their talent contributed to even bigger perfection in terms of crafts – that is how fine crafts, such as word-carving, drafting, painting, casting of jewelry and bells from bronze. The three brothers Atanas, Dimitar, and Georgi built the first mechanical town clock in Gorno Brodi village and assembled it in the tower of the village. Such town clocks they assembled in many other villages and towns in Bulgaria. The town clock in Blagoevgrad, which still works, is also made by the Dymcoff brothers.
People, such as Gotze Delchev, Yane Sandanski and Peyo Yavorov often visited and stayed at their house.
—> WHAT DID HE GIVE TO THE WORLD?
Nicolas Stoyanov Dymcoff is a Bulgarian engineer and social figure, the author of “Star of the Consent” – a project for the creation of global organization for preserving peace and encouraging cooperation between all states, nations, and religions on the world.
In the climax of the First World War Dymcoff published his book “The Star of the Consent” in which he develops the idea for the creation of permanent global organizations, which will deal with issues such as global security and the scientific and cultural cooperation between all nations. The project was published in French, German, Turkish, and through the foreign embassies in Tzarigrad Dymcoff sent them to many national and parliamentary representatives, including the President of the USA at that time Mr. Thomas Woodrow Wilson, who later comes with his famous “14 Points”.
At the end of 1916 and the beginning of 1917, engineer Nicolas Dymcoff wrote the book “The Star of Consent”. The book by itself is a project for the creation of a global organization for peace and cooperation between all states, nations, and religions.
Nicolas Dymcoff published his project in French, German, Turkish, and Greek language and through the embassies in Tzarigrad, he sent his project to many national and political authorities, including to the President of USA at that time – Thomas Wilson.
This is at the time when USA still had not joined the First World War and the famous “14 Points” of President Wilson for the post-war settlement of the world and for the creation of United Nations had still not existed.
Even the biographer of President Wilson gave evidence that the origin of this idea was not the President himself, but it was drown from other sources. According to the biographies of Dymcoff, the President of USA Thomas Wilson – the initiator of the creation of United Nations Society (League of Nations), also had the project of engineer Dymcoff. Beker stated that “even one single idea did not come originally from the President – all of them were taken from others and other sources, but still the president worked a lot on the creation of the charter and the whole world then connected the United Nations with the name of Wilson.”
In his project Nicolas Dymcoff suggests the creation of a Permanent Global Council, which has to examine and investigate “the means, needed for maintaining peace and agreement between all nations in the world.”
In an interview for the Greek newspaper “Pharos”, which was published as a supplement to the second edition of the book “The Star of Consent”, Nicolas Dymcoff further developed his idea for the establishment of the Permanent Council.
Apart from three main Councils, the author suggested a division in twenty Supreme Bureaus, which were to deal with: internal structure of the United Nations, world security and disarmament, inter- religion relations, issues of national minorities, world justice, education and culture, health care, agriculture, manufacture, trade, labor and many others.
Even if this model by engineer Nicolas Dymcoff is barely compared to the Charter of the United Nations and especially to the nowadays Charter of the United Nations, it is not very hard to find lots of similarities.
The idea of Dymcoff for Permanent Global Council, which has to maintain the mankind in harmony and consent, is a reality today. His prophetic words, said in 1918 – “I am convinced that the Supreme Counsel and the Permanent World counsel, which only aim to take care of the universal prosperity, will achieve their sacred goal before the end of this 20th century!”, became reality. On the 26th of June 1945 in San Francisco 50 states signed the Charter of the United Nations with a permanent head office in New York. Its main principles are extremely similar to the ones, suggested earlier in 1971 in Dymcoff’s project, namely: to keep international peace and security; to develop friendly relations between nations on the base of respected principles, such as equality and self-determination of nations; to exercise international cooperation when it comes to solving any issues of economic, social, cultural and humane character; to encourage respect towards human rights and the basic freedoms of all persons, regardless their race, sex, language, and religion; to be a center for the coordination of states’ actions when it comes to achieving all of the above-mentioned goals.
—> HIS CONTRIBUTION TO BULGARIA?
In the third decade of the 20th century N. Dymcoff lived in Tzarigrad as an eminent industrialist and diplomat with huge connections in whole Turkey and on the Balkans.
Bulgaria also owns him gratitude for another unvalued deed. He used his diplomatic talent and managed to obtain from the Turkish supreme authorities all the documents, related to Bulgaria, that were kept in the common stock for archives in Tzarigrad. Several carriages with the documents, reflecting events from several decades, were sent to Bulgaria. The incident, as Nicolas Dymcoff explained it by himself happened in the following way – one day, when he was passing by Tefter Han, he noticed that there were many archive materials, stuffed in sacks for recycling. When he found out that the documents were all related to Bulgaria, he wrote a letter to the Bulgarian government to send immediately someone, who speaks Turkish well. The famous specialist in Turkish language Vl. Hindalov arrived in Tzarigrad. A big part of the archives were bought off. Between them are the materials from the criminal process against Vasil Levski.
According to the medic Petar Dymcoff (the nephew of Nicolas Dymcoff) the story is as follows – “Mr. N. Dymcoff receives a request from the Bulgarian government and from the Bulgarian Academy for Sciences if it is possible some important documents from the Turkish archive to be brought in Bulgaria. Nicolas Dymcoff tells them to keep it quiet on the matter and to leave it to him to find the appropriate moment.”
As a conclusion, in 1934 there were 8 carriages with the valuable documents that arrived in liberated Bulgaria. Engineer Nicolas Dymcoff managed with his own efforts to deliver to his country the valuable archive materials, entirely connected with our national memory and history.
Dear Brethren
in the distant year 2009 (13 years ago) at my own will I created and naming committee for the naming of a street in the capital of Bulgaria – Sofia city after thiss great Bulgarian. On July 22, 2010 after a decision number 451 by the Sofia Municipality Countil, a street was named in the Vrabtniza district.
IN THE NAME OF THE GRAND ARCHITECT OF THE UNIVERSE
More about Nicolas Dymkoff here: www.nd.sofimun.org
RW Bro. Dimiter Mandradjiev
Ehnaton lodge 043
GL AF&AM in Bulgaria