Aleksandar Zankow

Aleksandar Zankow

Aleksandar Zolow Zankow ( Bulgarian : Александър Цолов Цанков; born June 29, 1879 in Orjachowo ; † July 27, 1959 in Belgrano , Argentina ) was a Bulgarian politician and Prime Minister .

biography

Studies and professional career

After schooling in Russian , he completed from 1901 to 1904 to study law at St. Kliment Ohridski - Sofia University . He then studied economics at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich , the University of Breslau and the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin until 1907 .

After completing his studies, he worked for a few years at the National Bank before he was appointed professor of political economy at the St. Kliment Ohridski University in Sofia in 1910 .

Prime Minister from 1923 to 1926

Zankow began his political career in 1923 when he was elected a member of the National Assembly, of which he was a member until 1934.

As early as the early summer of 1923, as chairman of Democratic Unity, he played a leading role in the coup d'état against the increasingly dictatorial Prime Minister Aleksandar Stambolijski . On June 9, 1923 he was appointed Prime Minister of Bulgaria as his successor . At the beginning of his reign he was Defense and Foreign Minister for one day until June 10, 1923. He then took over the post of Minister for National Education from June 10, 1923 until the end of his term of office.

His term of office, which lasted until January 4, 1926, was marked by deep internal unrest and disputes with the Bulgarian Communist Party (BKP), which Zankow mercilessly suppressed. This began just a few months after the coup against Stambolijski with a September uprising , which was bloodily suppressed. Finally, Zankow imposed after an assassination attempt on Tsar Boris III. and the bombing of the Sveta Nedelya Cathedral in Sofia in 1925, enforced martial law and banned the Communist Party.

Also in 1925 there was an invasion of Greek troops due to border disputes , which were condemned shortly afterwards by the League of Nations . Nevertheless, due to these events, Bulgaria found itself in a state crisis due to the high national debt .

After Zankow had not been able to obtain foreign loans to overcome the state crisis, he was replaced as Prime Minister by Andrei Lyaptschew on January 4, 1926 .

President of Parliament, National Socialism and the time of the Second World War

Following the loss of power, he withdrew from the political limelight for a few years, but was President of the National Assembly from January 5, 1926 to May 15, 1930.

It was not until May 15, 1930 that he was appointed Minister for National Education in his cabinet by his successor as Prime Minister Lyaptschew, and he remained in this office until the end of Lyaptschev's term of office on June 29, 1931.

In the following years he developed an increasing admiration for the ideology of fascism and soon became a supporter of Adolf Hitler . As early as 1932 he founded his own national movement, which was largely a copy of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) . However, despite the continued support of the then government, the movement played a subordinate role in Bulgaria's political life, as in later years the Federation of Bulgarian National Legions ( Съюз на Българските Национални Легиони , SBNL) was seen as the official supporter of the pro-German governments. In addition, his movement did not receive the support of the prevailing right-wing authoritarian organization ZVENO , which consisted mainly of officers .

After the murder of the chairman of the SNBL, General Christo Lukow , on February 13, 1943, however, his influence within the Bulgarian National Socialists grew . Ultimately, this was the reason why he became Prime Minister of a government in exile in Germany in 1944 .

After the Second World War he fled to Argentina and was one of the few politicians of the interwar period to survive the wave of terror during the communist seizure of power in Bulgaria.

Zankow died on July 27, 1959 in Belgrano (Buenos Aires) .

literature

• Wolf Oschlies: Cankov, Aleksandŭr . In: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 1. Munich 1974, p. 284 f.

Web links

• Biographical information in rulers.org
• Bulgaria 1918-1926
• Bulgaria 1939-1944
• Newspaper article about Aleksandar Zankow in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ^ President of the National Assembly

predecessor	Office	successor
Aleksandar Stambolijski	Prime Minister of Bulgaria 1923–1926	Andrei Lyaptschew
Aleksandar Stambolijski	Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Bulgaria June 9, 1923 - June 10, 1923	Christo Kalfow