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Title: Anarchism in Bulgaria Author: Ryan Robert Mitchell Date: 2009 Language: en Topics: Bulgaria, history Source: Retrieved on 22nd November 2021 from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781405198073.wbierp1752 Notes: Published in The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest.
Although utopian socialism had always been a part of the Bulgarian
national liberation movement, the tradition of anarchism was first
introduced to the country in the late 1880s, primarily from students
exposed to radical streams of thought within the Russian university
system. In 1892, the first anarchist reading groups in Bulgaria were
formed in the city of Rousse, devoted to the study of the works of
Bakunin and Kropotkin. Anarchism would largely remain an academic or
literary pursuit until revolutionaries adopted it in earnest at the turn
of the century.
In 1898, an anarchist terrorist organization called the Gemidzhii Circle
(but also known as the Boatmen of Thessaloniki or the Salonica
Dynamiters) formed in the Macedonian city of Thessaloniki. Although the
group engaged in several minor terrorist acts against the Ottoman
authorities, it is most infamous for the bombing campaign of April 28,
1903, when it bombed over two dozen sites ranging from a French
steamboat to a tobacco shop. The intention of the bombings was to alert
the other European powers to the plight of Macedonians in the Ottoman
empire, but the ill-thought-out campaign resulted only in further
repression of the Macedonian Slavs within Thessaloniki.
Although there had been an attempt to unite the country’s anarchists in
1909 to coincide with the international anarchist congress, the movement
was too underdeveloped to arrive at any organization that could
encompass the scene on a national scale. Up to this point, the Bulgarian
anarchists had been dispersed across a multitude of movements in the
country, including peasant cooperatives, the radical trade unionist
movement, nihilist artists and intelligentsia, militant combat cells,
and volunteer soldiers with the national liberation movement in
Macedonia/Thrace. There would be another ten years and a series of
crises in the Balkans and Europe before any nationwide Bulgarian
anarchist federation could form.
In September 1919, delegates from these diverse movements met in Sofia
and agreed to form the Federation of Anarchist Communists in Bulgaria
(FACB) in an effort to give guidance to and coordinate anarchist actions
across the country. A significant Bulgarian anarchist figure from this
period was Gueorgui Cheitanov (1896–1925), a charismatic orator and
seasoned guerilla fighter and strategist. Well traveled throughout
anarchist circles in Europe, Cheitanov was involved in anarchist
publishing in Bulgaria, including the banned Khliab I Svoboda (Bread and
Freedom), which acted as the organ for the Bulgarian anarchists, and the
FACB’s theoretical journal, Free Society.
In March 1923, the new Bulgarian republic signed a treaty with the
recently formed Kingdom of Yugoslavia that recognized new borders and
called for an end to territorial claims. Part of this treaty also
involved the joint agreement to suppress all radical groups – especially
the Vatreshna Makedonska Revoliucionna Organizacia (Internal Macedonian
Revolutionary Organization, or VMRO), which had been active in both
countries. The FACB rallied other anarchist organizations and held an
emergency meeting on March 26 in the city of Yambol to protest these new
suppressions and the government’s plan to disarm the people. The
military gave the assembled group only one warning before opening fire
on the crowd. Some of those who were arrested at the site were brought
back to the army barracks and executed the following day. All told, in
just two days some 26 anarchists were murdered by the government in
Yambol. At least another three anarchists were murdered, and many more
arrested, in the weeks following the Yambol massacre.
On June 9, 1923, a coup d’état, initiated by the military and supported
by the Bulgarian monarchy, overthrew the government and installed a
right-wing regime. Despite spontaneous uprisings by the peasants in both
the north and south of Bulgaria, the agrarians, non-party communists,
and depleted anarchist forces were the only groups to immediately resist
the coup. The Bulgarian Communist Party, on the other hand, sat out the
uprising, believing it to be a squabble between the “urban and rural”
bourgeoisie. Along with peasant support, the anarchists were able to
temporarily hold towns such as Kilifarevo and Drenovo, but due to lack
of concerted organization across the country the June uprisings
dissipated within a week.
The Bulgarian Communist Party, under pressure from Moscow and the
Comintern, became involved in insurgency after mass arrests of
communists and leftist activists across the country. It planned a
countrywide uprising with the other opposition organizations for the
night of September 22. The anarchists were again involved in the
coordination of peasant militias, seeing in the tactic of a popular
uprising the best method of resisting the military.
Although resistance by anti-government forces was both fierce and better
organized than the spontaneous June uprising, the September uprising
failed largely due to a lack of support in the capital Sofia and urban
centers. Reprisals after the uprising were harsh, and the government
went on yet another hunt for revolutionary leftists and anarchists. It
is estimated that 1,500–2,500 opposition members were murdered in the
white terror campaign in the months that followed the two insurrections,
with Cheitanov and his lover Mariola Sirakova (1904–25) among the
victims. In the course of a roundup of enemies of the state, on June 2,
1925, the two were ambushed by the authorities and shot along with 12
other prisoners at the Belovo railway station.
Despite having survived persecution under the Ottomans, a succession of
hostile native governments, and organized partisan resistance against
the fascist regime during World War II, Bulgarian anarchists faced their
greatest difficulties under the regime of their former allies, the
Bulgarian Communist Party. When the Soviets took power in 1946 the
Bulgarian anarchists were officially banned as an organization and it is
estimated that over a thousand Bulgarian anarchists were sent to the
gulags for political reeducation.
When Bulgaria gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, a
diverse set of anarchist organizations quickly established themselves
throughout the country. One of the oldest post-independence anarchist
organizations is the Federation of Anarchist Bulgarians, which has since
been active around anti-European Union and globalization activism. Both
Indymedia and Food Not Bombs have also opened chapters in Bulgaria.
---
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
Anonymous. (1948) [1983] Bulgaria: A New Spain. London: Alexander
Berkman Aid Fund.
Brown, J. F. (1970) Bulgaria Under Communist Rule. New York: Praeger.
Daskalov, D. (1995) Anarhizmut v Bulgarija [Anarchism in Bulgaria].
Sofia: Universitetsko izd-vo.
Khadziev, G. (1992) Natsionalnoto Osvobozhdeniye I Bezvlastniyat
Federalizum [National Liberation and Libertarian Federalism]. Sofia:
Artizdat-5.
Oren, N. (1973) Revolution Administered: Agrarianism and Communism in
Bulgaria. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Undzhiev, I. (1976) Hristo Botev: A Biography. Sofia: Sofia Press.