Tsarist Bulgaria
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Tsarism Bulgaria Царство България Zarstwo Balgarija 1908–1946 |
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| Constitution |
Constitution of Tarnowo 1923 Constitutional suspension from 1934 royal dictatorship |
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| Official language | Bulgarian | ||||
| capital city | Sofia | ||||
| Form of government | kingdom | ||||
| Form of government | Constitutional monarchy | ||||
| Head of state | Tsar | ||||
| Head of government | Prime Minister | ||||
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Area until 1908 until 1946 |
95,223 km² 110,912 km² |
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Population between 1908 and 1946 |
4,215,000 7,029,349 |
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| currency | Lev (1 lev = 100 stotinki) | ||||
| founding | October 5, 1908, formal independence from the Ottoman Empire and acceptance of the title of Tsar by Ferdinand I. |
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| resolution | September 15, 1946 Foundation of the People's Republic of Bulgaria |
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| National anthem |
Official: Schumi Maritza Tsar's hymn : Chimn na Zarstwo Bulgarija |
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| License Plate | BG | ||||
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The tsarism of Bulgaria ( Bulgarian Царство България / Zarstwo Balgarija) existed from October 5, 1908 to September 15, 1946 on the territory of what is now the Republic of Bulgaria . It is also known as the Third Bulgarian Empire .
story
→ Part of: History of Bulgaria
Principality of Bulgaria and union with Eastern Rumelia
After more than 500 years under Ottoman-Turkish rule, the Bulgarian state was re-established after the Russo-Turkish War from 1877 to 1878 . The Treaty of San Stefano with the Ottoman Empire provided for the creation of a Bulgarian state, which was to be extended to the Aegean Sea with Eastern Rumelia and Macedonia . Since Great Britain and France saw their interests impaired in this enormous increase in Russian power, they did not want to accept this dictated peace. An impending European war was averted by the convening of the Berlin Congress (1878), which completely revised the peace of San Stefano to the detriment of Bulgaria.
The Bulgarian state was degraded to a principality of Bulgaria , which was bordered in the Danube plain by the Balkan Mountains and the Danube and otherwise only comprised the area around Sofia. The Ottomans then only granted autonomy and did not recognize Bulgaria's independence until 1908 after a renewed proclamation. Alexander I of the Battenberg family was proclaimed Bulgaria's first prince on April 29, 1879.
On September 6, 1885, as a result of the union with Eastern Rumelia, the Serbian-Bulgarian War with the Kingdom of Serbia broke out , which feared and wanted to prevent a further union of Bulgaria with Macedonia . For this reason, Serbia fought against Bulgaria in the wars that followed.
Independence and the Balkan Wars
Ferdinand I. crowned himself on September 22nd July. / October 5, 1908 greg. to the first tsar of modern Bulgaria and read the solemn manifesto in the old capital Veliko Tarnovo . Bulgaria announced its independence taking advantage of power struggles between the great powers, the Russian Empire supported Bulgaria.
Under the nationalist Prime Minister Ivan Geschow, Tsarism formed an alliance with the Kingdom of Greece and Serbia . The three countries agreed to bury their rivalries and planned a joint attack on the Ottoman Empire.
In 1912 Bulgaria made the Balkan Alliance with Serbia, Greece and the Kingdom of Montenegro in order to conquer the remaining European provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The secret treaty with Serbia was signed in February 1912 and with Greece in May 1912. Montenegro joined the pact. The treaty laid down the division of Macedonia and Thrace among the allies, although the course of the dividing lines remained dangerously vague. After the Ottoman Empire refused to introduce reforms in the disputed areas, the First Balkan War began in October 1912 .
Bulgaria and its allies were quite successful in the First Balkan War. The Bulgarian army inflicted several defeats on the Ottoman Empire and approached Constantinople threateningly, while the Serbs and Greeks took control of Macedonia. The Ottomans were looking for a peace treaty in December. After the peace negotiations failed, fighting flared up again in February 1913. A Bulgarian-Serbian army was able to take Adrianople . A second armistice followed in March 1913 and the Ottomans lost all their territories on the European continent west of the Midia-Enos line, not far from Istanbul .
Bulgaria came into possession of most of Thrace, including Adrianople and the Aegean port of Dedeagach . Bulgaria also got part of Macedonia north and east of Thessaloniki , while Thessaloniki itself fell to Greece. However, Bulgaria was given only a few small areas on its western border.
Bulgaria had made the most sacrifices in the First Balkan War. Therefore, it claimed most of the areas conquered by the Ottomans. The Serbs saw it differently and refused to surrender areas that they had conquered in Northern Macedonia. These were roughly the areas that today comprise the Republic of North Macedonia .
In the opinion of the Serbs, the Bulgarian army in Adrianople had not achieved the set goals because they could not take the city without Serbian help, which is why the pre-war agreement on the division of Macedonia had to be revised. Some circles in Bulgaria were inclined to go to war against Serbia and Greece for this reason. In June 1913, Serbia and Greece formed a new alliance against Bulgaria.
Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pašić agreed that Greece could get Thrace if in return it helped Serbia to lock Bulgaria out of the Serbian part of Macedonia. The Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos agreed. The Bulgarian Tsar Ferdinand declared war on Serbia and Greece because he saw it as a violation of the pre-war agreement. He was discreetly supported in his decision by the German Empire and Austria-Hungary . On June 29, 1913, the Bulgarians attacked Greece and Serbia without a declaration of war, thus starting the Second Balkan War .
After initial defeats by the Serbs and Greeks, they later gained the upper hand. The decisive battle took place at Kalimantsi from July 15 to 19, 1913.
On July 10, 1913, the Kingdom of Romania declared war on Bulgaria, and on July 11, the Ottoman Empire followed. Bulgaria was attacked from all sides: the Romanians from the north and the Ottomans from the southeast. The war was definitely lost for Bulgaria, which had to cede its demands on Macedonia to the Greeks and Serbs, while the retreating Ottomans again took Adrianapol. Romania received the South Dobruja .
Bulgaria during the First World War
On October 14, 1915 Bulgaria entered World War I against territorial commitments on the side of the Central Powers and took part in the 1915 campaign in Serbia . The war participation, mainly on the Salonika front against the Allied Orient Army fighting under French leadership and from August 1916 to December 1917 also in the Romanian theater of war against Romania , bleeding the country economically, even when the German-Bulgarian Danube Army conquered Bucharest in 1916 succeeded.
The German General Erich Ludendorff described the Tsar and the Crown Prince in his war memories as follows:
"The Tsar [...] was an extremely clever man, but more a friend of skillful negotiation than a man of action [...] I particularly regretted that he was not a soldier and that his army did not exercise the same influence that his high position did demanded. The Crown Prince Boris, raised by his father in an exemplary manner, was a distinctly soldierly personality and was mature well beyond his youth. [...] The command authorities in Bulgaria and I were happy to negotiate with him. This people can never find a better ruler. "
After the obvious failure of the German spring offensive of 1918 on the western front , for which the German troops at the Salonika front had been almost completely withdrawn, skepticism broke out in Bulgaria that in the end it would be on the side of the winners of the war. On June 20, 1918, the pro-German Prime Minister Vasil Radoslawow resigned and made way for Aleksandar Malinov , who tried to achieve the mildest possible peace for Bulgaria. With the armistice of Thessaloniki on September 29, 1918, the First World War came to an end for Bulgaria. In the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine , the defeat of Bulgaria in World War I was confirmed and the country had to cede western Thrace to Greece , southern Dobruja to the Kingdom of Romania and Zaribrod and the western Bulgarian territories to Serbia.
Interwar period
In the Treaty of Neuilly in 1919, Bulgaria had to give its access to the Aegean Sea, the land area of Thrace, between the rivers Mesta and Mariza with the port of Dedeagac (today: Alexandroupolis) to the Allies , who gave it to Greece at the Sanremo Conference in April 1920, submit. Romania now received the southern part of the Dobruja, the areas around Zaribrod and Strumica went to the newly founded " Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes ".
Trade, industry and agriculture were badly affected. Agriculture no longer even had any seeds . There was a shortage of raw materials and energy in industry. The trade lacked the means of transport that had been used and destroyed in the war. The prices rose enormously. The unfortunate outcome of the war prompted the Tsar, on October 3, 1918, in favor of his son Boris III. to resign. In the country torn by unrest, he initially played a subordinate role until he seized power as an absolutist monarch in 1935, one year after the coup d'état by the group "Sweno". Former Prime Minister Wassil Radoslawow emigrated to Germany immediately after the First World War.
Tsarism in World War II
In World War II, Bulgaria was awarded to an alliance with the Axis powers on the German and Italian pressure, the South Dobrogea from Romania back. The royal family and the population successfully opposed the deportation of those Jews ( Holocaust ) who lived within the 1941 borders. In the occupied territories, however, 11,343 Jews were extradited to the Germans. In August 1943, Hitler invited Tsar Boris III. for a meeting in Berlin . While Tsar Boris agreed to a declaration of war against the supposedly distant powers United Kingdom and USA , he refused Bulgaria's participation in the war against the Soviet Union . The city of Sofia was massively bombed by the Royal Air Force and the United States Air Force in 1943 and 1944 . Boris III died soon after his return to Sofia. on August 28, 1943. His successor was Simeon II , who was still underage, as the last czar in Bulgaria.
As early as September 9, 1944, the government of Konstantin Murawiew was overthrown by a coup by the Fatherland Front , which acted after the invasion of the Red Army . Between September 9 and 12, 1944, several hundred leading figures were captured, murdered or disappeared forever by the communists. These days went down in Bulgarian history as the days of the red terror . On September 15, the Red Army held a military parade in Sofia.
Consequences of the Second World War and the end of the monarchy
On September 8, 1946, a referendum took place to abolish the monarchy and establish a republic. 95.6 percent of those who voted voted in favor. On September 15th, the People's Republic of Bulgaria was founded; a parliamentary election was held on October 27, 1946. Georgi Dimitrov became Prime Minister. The tsar's family with the then 9-year-old tsar Simeon II had to flee abroad.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Erich Ludendorff: My memories of the war . Berlin 1919, p. 199
- ^ Raul Hilberg : Perpetrator, victim, spectator. The extermination of the Jews 1933–1945. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-596-24417-X , p. 807.
- ↑ Gotthold Rhode : The Southeast European States from the Reorganization after World War I to the Era of People's Democracies. In: Theodor Schieder (ed.): Handbook of European history. Vol. 7 / I: Europe in the age of world powers. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1979, p. 1259.
literature
- Stefan Appelius : Bulgaria. Europe's Far East. Bouvier, Bonn 2006, ISBN 978-3-416-03154-7 .
- Sigrun Comati: Bulgarian regional studies. Helmut Buske Verlag, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-87548-327-8 .
- Richard J. Crampton: A concise history of Bulgaria. Cambridge concise histories. Cambridge University Press, New York 1997, ISBN 0-521-56719-X , digitized from Google Books .
- Richard J. Crampton: Bulgaria. Oxford University Press, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-820514-2 .
- Raymond Detrez: Historical dictionary of Bulgaria , Scarecrow Pr., Lanham 1997, ISBN 0-8108-3177-5 .
- Hans-Joachim Härtel, Roland Schönfeld: Bulgaria. From the Middle Ages to the present. Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1998, ISBN 3-7917-1540-2 .
- Nikolaj Poppetrov: Escape from Democracy: Authoritarianism and Authoritarian Regime in Bulgaria 1919–1944, in: Erwin Oberländer (Ed.): Authoritarian Regime in East Central and Southeastern Europe 1919–1944, Paderborn et al. 2001, ISBN 3-506-76186-2 , pp. 379-401.
Web links
- Ruler of Bulgaria (English)