Andrei Lukanov

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Andrei Karlow Lukanow ( Bulgarian Андрей Карлов Луканов ; born September 26, 1938 in Moscow , † October 2, 1996 in Sofia , Bulgaria ) was a Bulgarian diplomat, politician and prime minister .

biography

Family, studies and diplomatic career

Lukanow was the son of the later Vice Prime Minister and Foreign Minister from 1956 to 1961, Karlo Lukanow , who lived with his communist family in exile in the Soviet Union . His grandfather, Todor Lukanow , was also involved in a leading position in the Communist Party and after his emigration to the Soviet Union survived the Great Terror under Josef Stalin .

He himself completed his studies at the Institute for Foreign Relations in Moscow , from which he graduated in 1963 . In the same year he joined the then ruling Bulgarian Communist Party (BKP) ( Balgarska Komunisticeska Partija ) and joined the diplomatic service .

From 1963 to 1965 he was initially an employee of the COMECON department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He then became head of the International Organizations department. From 1969 to 1972 he was employed as First Secretary and Chargé d' Affaires of the Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva .

In the following years he made a career within the communist government in the People's Republic of Bulgaria.

Minister and promotion to prime minister

On February 1, 1972, he was first deputy minister and on October 31, 1973, Minister for Foreign Trade in the government of Stanko Todorow . During his tenure until June 16, 1976, he was also chairman of the UN Council on Trade and Development from 1974 to 1975 .

On June 17, 1976 he was appointed deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers and chairman of the committee for economic cooperation. At the same time he was elected as a candidate for the Central Committee (ZK) of the BKP and a member of the Grand National Assembly. Just one year later, he was elected a member of the Central Committee of the BKP and a member of the National Council of the Fatherland Front, a communist mass organization . In 1979 he was elected as a candidate for the Politburo of the Central Committee and was thus already a member of the extended governing body of the BKP. In addition, from 1980 to 1981 he was Chairman of the Executive Council of COMECON and later Chairman of the Currency Commission of the Central Committee of the BKP.

On August 18, 1987, he resigned his post of Deputy Prime Minister and became Minister for External Economic Relations instead. As a minister, he had a decisive influence on the overthrow of the Chairman of the State Council and General Secretary of the BKP, Todor Zhivkov , on November 10, 1989. On November 17, 1989, he resigned as minister. On February 8, 1990, he succeeded Georgi Atanasov as the last chairman of the Council of Ministers. As such, in March 1990 he submitted a moratorium on the level of foreign debt . From the elections to the Grand National Assembly held in June 1990, the BKP, renamed the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) in April 1990, emerged with an absolute majority with 211 out of 400 seats. In September 1990 he was elected Deputy Chairman of the BSP.

During this time he was a member of the round tables for the dissolution of the People's Republic and preparation for the establishment of the Republic of Bulgaria. After the founding of the Republic of Bulgaria on November 15, 1990, he resigned as Chairman of the Council of Ministers on December 7, handing over the office, which is now Prime Minister, to Dimitar Popov . On August 27, 1991, he resigned from his post of Deputy Chairman of the BSP.

Arrest and Assassination

In the following years he remained as a representative of the BSP in the National Assembly until his death. At the request of the Prosecutor General, during the term of office of Prime Minister Filip Dimitrov , his political immunity was lifted by a resolution of the National Assembly on July 7, 1992 . He was arrested on July 9th on charges of evading state funds intended for developing countries and national liberation movements. However, he was neither charged nor convicted and was finally released from prison on December 30, 1992 at the end of Prime Minister Dimitrov's term of office. In 1994 he became co-owner and president of a Russian- Bulgarian company.

On October 2, 1996, he was assassinated in front of his house in Sofia .

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg posthumously sentenced the Republic of Bulgaria to pay 40,000 francs for its illegal imprisonment from July to December 1992.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerald Knaus: Bulgaria , p. 89, Verlag CH Beck , 1997, ISBN 3-406-39866-9
  2. ↑ Andrei Lukanov, red baron of Bulgaria . In: The Sofia Echo of February 11, 2011
  3. ↑ Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern , pp. 283, 284, Hoover Press, 1986, ISBN 0-8179-8403-8
  4. ^ "Gold On Tobacco Road", article in TIME magazine of January 8, 1973
  5. ^ "Bulgarian Ex-Premier Is Slain Outside His Home", article in The New York Times, October 3, 1996
  6. ↑ European Court of Human Rights: judgment of March 20, 1997 - Lukanov ./. Bulgaria -, 21915/93. March 20, 1997, accessed May 12, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Lukanov, Andrei
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lukanow, Andrei Karlow (full name); Луканов, Андрей Карлов
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bulgarian politician and prime minister
DATE OF BIRTH September 26, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Moscow
DATE OF DEATH October 2, 1996
Place of death Sofia