Politika
- Events in Bulgaria
- Before 29 May 1903
This partial reading of Politika for 29 October 1926 covers two pieces. In 'Events in Bulgaria', the paper said two facts best defined Bulgarian politics: an attempt, which it called purely Germanophile, to draw the Bulgarian People's Agrarian Union, described as the country's strongest party, toward the extreme reactionary and fascist right; and the Lyapchev government's unreserved orientation toward England and Italy. The second piece, a memoir headed 'Before 29 May 1903', recalls the days after elections held before the 1903 coup in Serbia, when the political atmosphere seemed to lighten and groups of peasants accompanied the narrator's husband from the foreign ministry to the family home. The memoir text is only partly legible.
This reading covers two excerpts from the page. The OCR text was mostly garbled or in mixed scripts and was not used as body text. Tile edges cut words in several columns, so the memoir excerpt contains gaps marked [?] and was read with low confidence. The memoir's byline is split across tiles and is not identified here. Other sections, including one headed 'IV Шта конкретно тражимо?', are truncated and were not translated.
Translation
Events in Bulgaria
The following two facts most clearly characterize the political situation in Bulgaria: 1.) The attempt to draw the strongest political party in Bulgaria, the Bulgarian People's Agrarian Union, toward the most extreme reactionary and fascist right, an attempt of purely Germanophile tendency. 2.) The unreserved orientation of the Lyapchev government toward England and Italy.
Before 29 May 1903
But once the March elections had been held, it was suddenly as if the atmosphere [?] had lightened; the horizon began [?] to clear, political [?] to awaken throughout the whole country, grouping [?] around one particular body, its [?]. In those days groups [?] of peasants, and very often they accompanied [?] husband from the Ministry of Foreign [?] to our house.
Context
Andrey Lyapchev and the government the article criticized
The 'Lyapchev government' of the article was the cabinet of Andrey Lyapchev, who became Bulgarian prime minister on 4 January 1926 at the head of a coalition of the Democratic Alliance and the National Liberal Party. Lyapchev was born in Resen in Macedonia, then part of the Ottoman Empire, and his government was criticized for tolerating the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, a policy that strained relations with Yugoslavia and Greece. During his premiership he also secured two League of Nations loans to support the Bulgarian economy. The charge of an 'unreserved' turn toward England and Italy is the article's own characterization.
Why the paper called the Agrarian Union Bulgaria's strongest party
The Bulgarian Agrarian National Union, which the article calls 'the strongest political party in Bulgaria', had a record few rivals could match. Under Aleksandar Stamboliyski it created its own government in 1920 through a combination of major popular support and some coercive methods, and it remains the only agrarian party in Europe to have come to power with a majority government. Stamboliyski also hoped for an agrarian alliance extending beyond Bulgaria to the whole Balkan region. On 9 June 1923 a bloc of military factions staged a coup and deposed his regime. By the time this article appeared in 1926, the Union was a mass peasant movement outside government, and the article's warning concerned who would win over that large following.
The 'Germanophile' right and the liberal parties of the mid-1920s
The article's label 'Germanophile' matches a specific strand of the Bulgarian right. The National Liberal Party was established on 29 November 1920 by a merger that included the Radoslavist Liberal Party; its predecessor parties had pursued pro-Central Powers policies in the First World War, and other parties were unwilling to cooperate with it for that reason. The National Liberals were also involved in the June 1923 coup that overthrew the Agrarian government. In July 1925 a group around Dimitar Petkov refounded the Stambolovist People's Liberal Party. At the 1927 election, after this issue, the lines remained fluid: the Stambolovists ran in coalition with the ruling Democratic Alliance, while the National Liberals joined the Democratic Party and the Tomov faction of the Agrarian Union in an opposition alliance. The claim that someone was deliberately drawing the whole Union to the far right is the article's interpretation.
General Cincar-Marković's government and the coup of 29 May 1903
The date in the memoir's title is the Old Style date of Serbia's May Coup: on the night of 28–29 May 1903, or 10–11 June by the Gregorian calendar, officers organized by Captain Dragutin Dimitrijević (Apis) killed King Alexander, Queen Draga and Prime Minister Dimitrije Cincar-Marković, among others. Cincar-Marković, a general who had been one of King Milan's closest associates from 1897 to 1900, headed a government that Alexander installed through a new coup on 6 November 1902 after blaming the Radicals. The spring of 1903 was violent: a rally on 23 March escalated into clashes with police and army that left six dead, and the king, expecting to lose new elections, staged two coups within one hour. The government then won elections on 18 May 1903. The memoir recalls 'March elections' after which political life awakened and peasants escorted the narrator's husband home; the encyclopedia account dates the vote to May and places it after the king's double coup.
Original
Догађаји у Бугарској
Следећа два факта најјасније карактеризују политичку ситуацију у Бугарској: 1.) Покушај да се привуче најкрајњијој реакционарној и фашистичкој десници најсилнија политичка партија у Бугарској -. Бугарски Народни Земљоделски Савез, - покушај чисто германофилске тенденције. 2.) Безрезервна оријентација Љапчевљеве владе ка Енглеској и Италији.
Пред 29 мај 1903
Али, по извршеним мартовским изборима, одједном као да је у атмосфери [?] лакнуло, хоризонат се поче [?] разведравати, политички [?] будити у целој земљи, групишући [?] око једног одређеног тела - свога [?]. Тих дана групе [?] сељака и врло често пратиле су [?] мужа од Министарства Спољних [?] до наше куће.