History of Bulgaria (1878–1946)
Although Sofia attempted to pull out of the war as the Soviet Union advanced towards its territory (1944), the Red Army invaded (September 1944), and a communist government came to power (1944–1946) and established the People's Republic of Bulgaria (1946–1990).
The proposed Treaty of San Stefano of March 3, 1878 provided for a self-governing Bulgarian state,[1] which comprised the geographical regions of Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia.
[4] As a result, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, supervised a revised Treaty of Berlin (1878), one that scaled back the proposed Bulgarian state.
An autonomous Principality of Bulgaria was created, between the Danube and the Stara Planina range, with its seat at the old Bulgarian capital of Veliko Tarnovo, and including Sofia.
[7] An autonomous Ottoman province under the name of Eastern Rumelia was also created south of the Stara Planina range, whereas Macedonia reverted to the sovereignty of the Sultan.
[8] Prince Alexander had conservative leanings, and at first opposed Stambolov's policies, but by 1885 he had become sufficiently sympathetic to his new country to change his mind, and supported the Liberals.
The main external political problem confronting Bulgaria throughout the period up to World War I was the fate of Macedonia and Eastern Thrace.
At the end of 19th century the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization was founded and began the preparation of an armed uprising in the regions still occupied by the Ottoman Turks.
Its aim was to liberate those regions, or at least to draw the attention of the Great Powers and make them advocate for the improvement of the living conditions for the population through legal and economic reforms.
In 1911 the Nationalist Prime Minister, Ivan Evstratiev Geshov, set about forming an alliance with Greece and Serbia, and the three allies agreed to put aside their rivalries to plan a joint attack on the Ottomans.
The Bulgarian army inflicted several defeats on the Ottoman forces and advanced threateningly against Istanbul, while the Serbs and the Greeks took control of Macedonia.
Bulgaria also gained a slice of Macedonia, north and east of Thessaloniki (which went to Greece), but only some small areas along her western borders.
Seeing this as a violation of the pre-war agreements, and discreetly encouraged by Germany and Austria-Hungary, Tsar Ferdinand declared war on Serbia and Greece and the Bulgarian army attacked on June 29.
The war was now definitely lost for Bulgaria, which had to abandon most of her claims of Macedonia to Serbia and Greece, while the revived Ottomans retook Adrianople.
Although Bulgaria, in alliance with Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans, won military victories against Serbia and Romania, occupying much of Macedonia (taking Skopje in October), advancing into Greek Macedonia, and taking Dobruja from the Romanians in September 1916, the war soon became unpopular with the majority of Bulgarian people, who suffered great economic hardship and also disliked fighting their fellow Orthodox Christians in alliance with the Muslim Ottomans.
In September 1918 the Serbs, British, French and Greeks broke through on the Macedonian front and Tsar Ferdinand was forced to sue for peace.
Bulgaria was saddled with huge war reparations to Yugoslavia and Romania, and had to deal with the problem of refugees as pro-Bulgarian Macedonians had to leave the Yugoslav Macedonia.
Another bitter enemy was the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO), which favoured a war to regain Macedonia for Bulgaria.
A right wing government under Aleksandar Tsankov took power, backed by the Tsar, the army and the VMRO, who waged a White terror against the Agrarians and the Communists.
Under Filov's government Bulgaria drifted into World War II, faced by an invasion and bribed by the return of southern Dobruja from Romania, on the orders of Hitler (see Second Vienna Award), in September 1940.
In March 1941 Bulgaria formally signed the Tripartite Pact and German troops entered the country in preparation for the Axis invasions of Greece and Yugoslavia.
In August 1943 Tsar Boris died suddenly after returning from Germany (possibly assassinated, although this has never been proved) and was succeeded by his six-year-old son Simeon II.
The Fatherland Front took office in Sofia following a coup d'état, setting up a broad coalition under the former ruler Kimon Georgiev and including the Social Democrats and the Agrarians.
Under the terms of the peace settlement, Bulgaria was allowed to keep Southern Dobruja, but formally renounced all claims to Greek and Yugoslav territory.
In February 1945 the new realities of power in Bulgaria were shown when Prince Kirill and hundreds of other officials of the old regime were arrested on charges of war crimes.
After a series of anti-Jewish legislation starting in 1940 (e.g. Jews were excluded from public service, banned from certain areas, restricted economically, and not allowed to intermarry; see The Law for Protection of the Nation), Bulgaria ultimately deported some portions of the Jewish population under its control.
It was renamed the University of Sofia in 1904, where the three faculties of history and philology, physics and mathematics, and law produced civil servants for national and local government offices.
For over a century, this protection enabled Bulgaria's Turks to develop separate religious and cultural organizations, schools, a local Turkish press, and a literature.
The capital of Sofia grew by a factor of 600% from 20,000 population in 1878 to 120,000 in 1912, primarily from peasants who arrived from the villages to become labourers tradesmen and office seekers.
They launched a poorly planned uprising in 1903 that was brutally suppressed, and led to tens of thousands of additional refugees pouring into Bulgaria.
