Fascist organizations in Bulgaria never became a mass movement.[1] A scientific consensus has been reached that Bulgaria's agrarian society and its monarchic system were the barriers before the fascist practices. Despite that due to the authoritarian regime Boris III introduced in 1935 and Bulgaria’s accession to the Axis powers during WWII, the Bulgarian marxist historiography labelled this era as monarcho-fascism and demonized the interwar rightist movements.[2] In fact fascists in interwar Bulgaria were split into several small movements as the National Social Movement, the Union of Bulgarian National Legions and the Ratniks. They were unable to become prominent political forces in the country.[3] Bulgarian fascist movements faced problems differentiating their goals from other elements of the far right political authoritarian movements. The temporal power of conservative authoritarian rivals who were in control of the government from 1934 to 1944, contributed to the weakness of these fascist groups.[4] The National Social Movement (NSM) founded by Aleksandar Tsankov as a genuinely fascist group was taking inspiration from the NSDAP and rose by the early to mid 1930s. The second fascist movement, the Union of Bulgarian National Legions, was started by general Hristo Lukov and later became an ally of the NSM, though being more ideologically radical. The third fascist movement, the Union of the Ratniks, was founded by Professor . It was also closer to the German Nazis than to Italian Fascism.
Fascism became influential in Bulgaria during the 1930s, when parliamentary democracy has failed.[5] In May 1934 Bulgarian coup d'état was carried out by the Zveno military organization, aided by the Bulgarian Army, which abolished political parties altogether. As result the small Bulgarian National Socialist Workers Party disappeared. However in April 1935, the officers were replaced by Tsar Boris. Since then, the Tsar decided to take power into his own hands, while elections were held in 1939 on a nonpartisan basis. That was some kind of “royal dictatorship" similar to the one implemented by Alexander I of Yugoslavia between 1929 and 1931. In 1940, upon Bulgaria getting into the new war on the Axis side, the regime was institutionalized by creating a fascist-type mass youth movement called Brannik. Despite that organisation became numerically large, Bulgaria hadn't developed a corporate economic system essential to fascism nor any adult counterparts like trade unions or militias were created. Anti-Jewish propaganda gradually intensified in Bulgaria which led to the introduction of antisemitic law. Boris III feared the use of these organizations as a means of pressure from Germany and sought to limit their contacts with German officials.[6] Boris died in 1943 and was replaced by a regent council, while it was itself overthrown the next year, making the country now on side with the Allies.[7] In September 1944, the Zveno and the anti-Axis Fatherland Front engineered a new coup d'état. Thus, fascism proved considerably less successful in Bulgaria than in WWII Romania, Hungary, Croatia or Serbia.[8]
References[]
^Svetla Baloutzova (2011). Demography and Nation: Social Legislation and Population Policy in Bulgaria, Central European University Press, p. 97, ISBN 6155211922.
^Wien, M. (2008). The Bulgarian monarchy: A politically motivated revision of a historical image in a post-socialist transitional society. In D. Brett, C. Jarvis & I. Marin (Eds.), Four empires and an enlargement: States, societies and individuals: Transfiguring perspectives and images of Central and Eastern Europe (pp. 79-86).
^Frusetta, J. Interwar fascism and the post-1989 radical right: Ideology, opportunism and historical legacy in Bulgaria and Romania, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Volume 42, Issue 4, 2009, Pages 551-571, ISSN 0967-067X,
^Frusetta, J. (2010). Fascism to Complete the National Project? Bulgarian Fascists’ Uncertain Views on the Palingenesis of the Nation, East Central Europe, 37(2-3), 280-302.
^Raymond Detrez, Historical Dictionary of Bulgaria (2014). Historical Dictionaries of Europe, Rowman & Littlefield, p. 197, ISBN 1442241802.
^Поппетров, Николай. (2008) Фашизмът в България. Развитие и прояви. „Кама“, стр. 97-98, ISBN 978-954-9890-92-1.
^Cyprian Blamires, (2006). World Fascism: A-K, Volume 1 of World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, pp. 107-108. ISBN 1576079406.
^David D. Roberts (2016). Fascist Interactions: Proposals for a New Approach to Fascism and Its Era, 1919–1945. Berghahn Books, p. 252, ISBN 9781785331312.
