They are both Slavic languages and use the same alphabet, Cyrillic, which helps a lot in understanding words. Also Bulgarian is the closest language to old church slavonic, now extinct, from which a lot of the Russian language is sourced from. As an estimate, probably about 80 per cent of words in Bulgarian also exist in Russian In the rush to independence and during the Turkish occupation Bulgaria incorporated many Russian words into their language and bought the language even closer to Russian.
The grammar and pronouncation is totally different in both languages so it is almost impossible for them to understand each other. Bulgarian pronouncation is clear and sharp, but Russian is softly spoken.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.