Ivan Beskov

Ivan Beschkow Dunow , even Ivan Beshkov Dunov ( Bulgarian Иван Бешков Дунов * 9. September 1896 in Dolni Dabnik ; † 1. February 1945 in Sofia ( execution )) was a Bulgarian politician of the Bulgarian Agrarian People's Union (bulg Български земеделски народен съюз. short БЗНС). From 1943 to 1944 he was Minister of Agriculture in the government of Dobri Boschilow . His younger brother was the painter Ilija Beschkow .

Life

In 1914, Ivan Beschkow graduated from the Economics School in Svishtov and went the following year to Leipzig to study finance and economics. Because of the First World War , he returned to Bulgaria, closed the school for reserve officers, and participated in the war as a platoon commander in the 11th Infantry Regiment of Sliven . In 1916 he was wounded in the battle of the Cernabogen .

After the war he went back to Leipzig, where he finished his studies in 1922. After his return to Bulgaria in 1923 he became a member of the Peasant Party . From 1924 to 1926 he headed the local farmers' cooperative. In 1926 he was one of the founders of the farmers' cooperative “Bulgarischer Zucker” and until 1936 a member of the board. From 1934 to 1938 he was a board member of the Bulgarian Agricultural and Cooperative Bank. During this time he was elected twice (1927 and 1931) as a member of parliament.

After the political parties were banned in 1934, Beschkow continued to be active in public. In the period from 1938 to 1943 he was general director of the umbrella organization of Bulgarian farmers' cooperatives (Bulgarian: Общия съюз на българските земеделски кооперации ). In 1940 he was elected for the third time as a member of parliament.

From 1943 to 1944, Beschkow was Minister of Agriculture in the government of Dobri Boschilow . In March 1943, as one of 43 of the 160 members of parliament, he signed a letter of protest that ultimately prevented the deportation of the Bulgarian Jews to the extermination camps (see Rescue of the Bulgarian Jews ).

After the declaration of war by the Soviet Union against Bulgaria, the invasion of the Red Army and the coup of the Fatherland Front on September 9, 1944, he was arrested (see Communist seizure of power ). Soon afterwards he was sentenced to death by a people's court by the Fatherland Front . In 1996 the judgment was overturned posthumously and declared unfounded and null and void.

On February 1, 1945, the politicians of the last few years were shot in front of a bomb crater in the Sofia Central Cemetery . Among the dead were 20 of the 43 MPs who had signed the letter of March 1943. One of them was Ivan Beshkov.

Web links

• http://www.mzh.government.bg/MZH/bg/Structure/History/History_ministers.aspx (Bulgarian)