Lovers separated by Iron Curtain for 22 years ‘married by Anthony Albanese’

The romance started in 1975. Both were Sydney University students. Stephanie Short, 19, was a second-year student studying physiotherapy. Valentin “Val” Dimitrov Hadjiev, 23, son of a Bulgarian diplomat and consul general to NSW, was studying law.

It was a Sunday afternoon. She had gone back to a student shared house in Newtown. There she met Hadjiev, who made everyone tea. Later the group of half a dozen started dancing to Elton John’s Candle in the Wind. One thing led to another.

Stephanie Short and Valentin Dimitrov Hadjiev at Killcare Beach in 1975.

Hadjiev had permission from the Bulgarian government to stay in Australia until his graduation in May 1976. Then he received a telegram from his mother to say that he had to return immediately under the direction of the Communist Party in Bulgaria.

“He was just so upset and I was in tears,” Short said. “I was hysterical and saying, why do you have to go? He explained there wasn’t any choice and that I didn’t understand Cold War politics.”

Short visited Sofia on the Orient Express to spend New Year of 1976-77 with Hadjiev and his family. But then the divide of the Iron Curtain appeared to draw a shroud over the relationship.

Stephanie Short and Valentin Hadjiev in Bulgaria.

“I kept sending letters and aerograms and, unknown to me, he was receiving the mail and putting it in a suitcase. I didn’t know if he was alive or dead,” she said.

Things seemed to move on. He became a professor of law at Sofia University, married, had a daughter in 1981, and separated in 1997. Meanwhile, she was working as a physiotherapist at Prince Alfred Hospital, also married and didn’t have children. Her marriage ended in 1994.

The Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Borders opened, the Iron Curtain was lifted and the Cold War came to an end. Hadjiev won a prestigious Fulbright fellowship to the University of Virginia Law School in 1998. The job came with what was then regarded as a high-powered computer.

In those pre-Google days, he used it to see if he could track down Short. He guessed at possible email addresses, knowing from her letters at which universities she had studied. Finally, he guessed the right one.

“I was in the University of Tasmania at a conference and got back to work after 10 days,” she said. “There was a mountain of emails and there was one from [e-mail]. I couldn’t believe it.

“I was just breathless that he was alive and he was making contact with me. I printed the email and I ran down the corridor to my assistant and said, ‘Sam, Sam, I just need to know where is he?’ I thought Yahoo was a place.

Stephanie Short and Valentin Hadjiev with Anthony Albanese, then the opposition leader in 2020.

“I’m an ardent feminist, so I wasn’t going to drop everything and run into his arms. We had a rendezvous in Washington DC in October ’98. It was just magical. It was like no time had passed at all. We were still in love and we had so much in common.”

Next – whether to live in Sydney or Sofia? He went to the Australian embassy and got a visitor’s visa to Australia, arriving 12 months later in October 1999 with days left to run on the visa.

He was awarded a scholarship to complete his PhD studies at the University of Sydney, which enabled him to get a student visa.

Valentin Hadjiev and Stephanie Short in Greece 2022.

Short wrote to her MP to see if he could help with a more permanent visa. The federal member for Grayndler in 2003 was Anthony Albanese. He wrote to the Department of Immigration. “I am writing in support of my constituent and personal friend Dr Stephanie Short who is sponsoring her de facto husband Dr Valentin Hadjiev in an application for a spouse visa to be lodged at your office. (Indeed her sister Leonie Short was a colleague of mine as a federal member of parliament for the seat of Ryan). You can be satisfied that they have a mutual commitment to a shared life as husband and wife to the exclusion of all others.”

The letter hit the mark and the permanent spouse visa was granted. The couple always joked that they “were married by Anthony Albanese”.

“One of my friends said ‘give up your job and write the movie script’. But we didn’t want to jinx our good luck, our good fortune. We just felt so blessed and so lucky.”

They were together for 25 years, three years longer than their separation.

The story of the romance emerged this month when a memorial service was held in Woy Woy after Hadjiev died unexpectedly at the age of 71.

In her eulogy, Short quoted from a poem that Gustav Mahler put to music in 1904: “Death is powerful, yet love is even stronger.”

After Hadjiev’s death, Short found every photograph from their time together in 1975-77 and her letters and aerograms in a locked suitcase.

Stephanie Short reads letters she sent to Valentin Hadjiev in Bulgaria.Credit: Janie Barrett

Albanese was aware of the outcome of his letter to immigration and met the couple in 2020 as opposition leader.

Told of the passing of Valentin, the now prime minister said: “It is really sad news that Val has passed away, and my thoughts are with his beloved Stephanie and their family.

“Theirs is a beautiful, 50-year-long love story, of course with a period of 21 years in-between separated by the Iron Curtain.

“My sadness is tinged with a great pride and warmth that I was able to play a part in their touching story, and that they had the last 21 happy years together in each other’s arms.

“Rest in peace Val.”