Politika
- The Policy of the Lyapchev Government.
In a readable passage from an editorial on Bulgarian foreign policy, Belgrade's Politika argued that Andrey Lyapchev's cabinet was carrying on the course of Professor Aleksandar Tsankov's government. In the paper's view the only change was one of style. The former foreign minister, Hristo Kalfov, had been crude and unable to hide what he was doing. His successor, Atanas Burov, was talented and skilled at manoeuvring. Politika charged that all of Burov's manoeuvres served one aim: to leave Yugoslavia in a hopeless position so that he could plunge a knife into its back. It said anyone who knew the cabinet's make-up could not doubt this.
Only one short passage of the editorial could be read. The page scan is heavily speckled and faded, the OCR is unusable, and the passage begins mid-sentence. It ends with an unclear mark, rendered here as [?]. The rest of the article is not covered, including any specific diplomatic acts it may have cited. The role of the Bulgarian Military League, one of the research questions, could not be documented from the sources available, so it is left out of the commentary.
Translation
The Policy of the Lyapchev Government.
on the government of Professor Tsankov. The only difference is that the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kalfov, was cruder and did not know how to conceal his actions, whereas today's Minister, Atanas Burov, is talented and knows how to manoeuvre very skilfully. All his manoeuvres have one strictly defined aim: that Yugoslavia should find herself in a hopeless position, so that he can plunge his knife into her back. Whoever knows the composition of the present cabinet cannot doubt anything we say. [?]
Context
From Tsankov to Lyapchev: the January 1926 change of government in Sofia
The editorial compares two Bulgarian governments. Aleksandar Tsankov, a professor of political economy, played a leading role in the coup that overthrew Aleksandar Stamboliyski on 9 June 1923. He then served as prime minister until 4 January 1926, and he was removed from office after failing to secure a loan for the country. On that same date Andrey Lyapchev became prime minister at the head of a coalition of the Democratic Alliance and the National Liberal Party. Atanas Burov took over the foreign ministry and held it until June 1931. His predecessor there was Hristo Kalfov, who had followed Tsankov himself in that post. This is the contrast the editorial draws between the 'cruder' Kalfov and the 'talented' Burov. Lyapchev is generally described as having pursued a more moderate line than Tsankov, declaring an amnesty for Communist prisoners. Politika rejected that view of the new government's foreign policy. It argued that the aim had stayed the same and only the method had changed.
Why Belgrade distrusted the cabinet: Lyapchev and the Macedonian question
The editorial's hint that anyone who 'knows the composition of the present cabinet' will understand its suspicions points to the Macedonian question. Lyapchev himself was born in Resen, a Macedonian town then under Ottoman rule. By 1926 the region lay inside Yugoslavia, in what is now North Macedonia. Lyapchev was also criticised for tolerating the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), which strained Bulgaria's relations with Yugoslavia and Greece. After the First World War, IMRO challenged the partition of Macedonia and launched raids into Greek and Yugoslav territory from its stronghold around Petrich, in Bulgaria. When the 1923 Treaty of Niš with Yugoslavia threatened its base in Bulgaria, IMRO responded by assassinating Stamboliyski. For a Belgrade paper, then, a Macedonian-born prime minister who tolerated IMRO was easily read as a sign of hostile intent.
Atanas Burov: the 'skilful manoeuvrer' in other records
Politika cast Burov as a talented but duplicitous operator. Accounts of his career describe the same foreign minister quite differently. He was a banker who had studied in Paris and a leader of the People's Party. As foreign minister he is credited with improving Bulgaria's image and its relations with its neighbours. He was elected to the Political Commission of the League of Nations. Together with the finance minister he negotiated the Refugee Loan and the Stability Loan. That account is openly admiring, so it is no neutral judgement either. Still, it helps explain the editorial's argument. The polished diplomacy and international standing that Bulgarian and League circles valued are exactly what Politika treated as camouflage. In its reading, Burov's skill only made him more dangerous than his openly hostile predecessor. The editorial's claim that he wanted to 'plunge a knife' into Yugoslavia's back is the paper's own accusation. It is not an established finding.
Where the IMRO problem led after 1926
The fears behind this editorial were tied to IMRO's campaign across the Bulgarian–Yugoslav border, and events after 1926 show how that campaign ended. In the interwar years IMRO cooperated with the Croatian Ustaše. Their most prominent victim was King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, assassinated in France in 1934. The same year, after the Bulgarian coup of 1934, the Bulgarian army moved against IMRO's Petrich stronghold. The organisation was reduced to a marginal force. These later events do not prove the particular charges Politika made against Burov in 1926. They do show that Yugoslav anxiety about armed Macedonian groups operating from Bulgarian soil rested on a real and lasting threat. They also show that it took until the 1934 crackdown for a Bulgarian government to suppress IMRO's Petrich base.
Original
ПОЛИТИКА ЉАПЧЕВЉЕВЕ ВЛАДЕ.
на владу професора Цанкова. Разлика је само у томе, што је бивши Министар Спољних Послова, Калфов, био грубљи и није умео да скрива своје поступке, док је данашњи Министар Атанас Буров талентован и врло вешто уме да маневрише. Сви његови маневри имају један строго одређени циљ: да се Југославија нађе у безизлазном положају, како би јој свој нож забио у леђа. Ко познаје састав садашњега кабинета, тај не може сумњати у све што кажемо. [?]