Petar Toshev Mladenov (; 22 August 1936 – 31 May 2000) was a Bulgarian communist diplomat and politician. He was the last leader of the Bulgarian People's Republic from 1989 to 1990, and briefly the first President of the Bulgarian Republic in 1990. Early life and education Mladenov was born to a peasant family in the village of Toshevtsi, Vidin Province on 22 August 1936. His father was an anti-fascist partisan killed in action in 1944. Career Mladenov served as the first secretary of the party's committee in Vidin Province from 1969 to 1971. He joined the Politburo and became foreign minister in 1971, serving in that position for 18 years. In the same year, he was elected to the National Assembly. He was one of the closest associates to longtime leader Todor Zhivkov. Role in Zhivkov's overthrow During the 1980s, he became attracted to Mikhail Gorbachev's reform efforts. He saw a chance to change Bulgaria's image as one of the most unreformed countries in the Eastern Bloc. In May 1989, Zhivkov ordered the expulsion of most of Bulgaria's ethnic Turks. This brought near-unanimous international condemnation. Mladenov, who had had to field most of the international complaints, was particularly upset because the expulsion violated an international human rights accord he'd signed four months earlier. Several other top officials, including Defense Minister Dobri Dzhurov, Premier Georgi Atanasov and Finance Minister Andrey Lukanov, were also upset with Zhivkov over the expulsion. Along with Mladenov, they began plotting to overthrow Zhivkov. Although Lukanov did most of the organizational work, it was decided that Mladenov would be the new party leader. At the yearly Warsaw Pact summit, he met with Mikhail Gorbachev and got his tacit support for removing Zhivkov. In October 1989, Mladenov organized a 35-nation environmental conference and invited the Bulgarian NGO Ecoglasnost to participate. Ten days into the conference, several Ecoglasnost members were beaten up by the Darzhavna Sigurnost (secret police) and the militia on orders from Zhivkov. When Mladenov found out about it, he decided Zhivkov had to go. On 24 October, Mladenov resigned as foreign minister. His resignation letter was a scathing condemnation of Zhivkov's way of ruling the country. Suspecting that Zhivkov might try to kill him, he sent a copy of the letter to the entire Politburo, as well as to Gorbachev. On 9 November, just after he returned from a trip to China, Mladenov and his