Prime minister who led Bulgaria through the Balkan League and the First Balkan War and resigned rather than fight the allies
Born in Plovdiv to a merchant family, he studied political economy at Owens College in Manchester. Sentenced to death for his writings against Ottoman rule, he had the sentence commuted to exile in Aleppo. He was governor of the Bulgarian National Bank from 1883, finance minister several times, and leader of the People's Party from 1901. Prime minister from 29 March 1911, he pursued the policy of the Balkan League and led Bulgaria through the First Balkan War, but resigned on 30 May 1913, the day the Treaty of London was signed, because he opposed the tsar's policy of making war on the allies.
Career timeline
- 1883Governor of the Bulgarian National Bank
- 1894–1897Finance minister
- 1901President of the National Assembly and leader of the People's Party
- 1911–1913Prime minister of Bulgaria
Pro-German politician who became premier amid the 1913 defeat and led Bulgaria through the First World War on the Central Powers' side
Born in Lovech, he studied law at Heidelberg and became a supporter of Germany. Minister of Justice in Petko Karavelov's cabinet in 1884, he succeeded him as prime minister in 1886 at 32, the youngest in Bulgarian history. His brief, corrupt rule split the Liberal Party, and a Radoslav Liberal Party of right-wing liberals was formed in 1887. On 17 July 1913, during the Second Balkan War, the tsar appointed him to head a pro-German and Russophobic government; in July 1914 he secured a large loan from Germany and Austria-Hungary, and he was premier throughout most of the First World War. He left office in June 1918, fled to Germany after the war, was sentenced to death in absentia by the Stamboliyski regime in 1922, and died in Berlin in 1929, the year he was pardoned.
Career timeline
- 1884Bulgarian Minister of Justice
- 1886–1887Prime Minister of Bulgaria
- 1899Bulgarian Minister of the Interior
- 1913–1918Prime Minister of Bulgaria
- 1922Sentenced to death in absentia while in exile in Germany
Founder of Bulgarian socialism who organized Russia's first Marxist circle
In August 1891, with political assemblies banned, Blagoev secretly gathered some twenty socialists on Buzludzha Peak in the Balkan Mountains and founded Bulgaria's first Social Democratic Party.
While a student at St. Petersburg University, he organized Russia's first Marxist circle (the 'Party of Russian Social Democrats') in 1883 and published the illegal newspaper Rabochii (Worker). Arrested and deported to Bulgaria, he founded the Bulgarian Social Democratic Party at the 1891 Buzludzha Congress, led the revolutionary 'Narrow' (Tesnyaki) wing after the 1903 split, edited the theoretical journal Novo Vreme for 25 years, and translated Marx's Capital into Bulgarian. He opposed the Balkan Wars and World War I, advocated a Balkan Federation, and after the October Revolution aligned with the Bolsheviks, transforming the party into the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1919 and becoming its first leader. An independent revolutionary who never fully accepted Lenin's worker-peasant alliance, he laid the theoretical foundations of Bulgarian Marxism.
Career timeline
- 1883–1885Organized Russia's first Marxist circle, published Rabochii
- 1891Founded Bulgarian Social Democratic Party at Buzludzha Congress
- 1897–1923Editor-in-chief of theoretical journal Novo Vreme
- 1903–1919Leader of Narrow Socialists (Tesnyaki)
- 1905Translated Marx's Capital, Vol. I into Bulgarian
- 1919–1923First Chairman of Bulgarian Communist Party
General who in effect commanded the Bulgarian army in the Balkan Wars and ordered the June 1913 attack on Bulgaria's former allies
Born in Ottoman-ruled Stara Zagora, he graduated from the Military School in Sofia and the Nicholas General Staff Academy in Saint Petersburg, commanded the left flank at Slivnitsa in the Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885, and was Minister of War in 1891–1894 and 1903–1907; in 1907 he was charged with corruption over arms supplies. In 1912 he became assistant to Tsar Ferdinand as commander-in-chief, in effect commanding the army: he ordered the assault on the Çatalca lines and directed the reduction of Adrianople. In June 1913 he ordered the demonstrative attack on the Serbian and Greek armies that set off the Second Balkan War, and planned the battles of Kalimanci and the Kresna Gorge. He later lived in France and was minister plenipotentiary in France and Belgium in 1920–1923.
Career timeline
- 1885Commanded the left flank at Slivnitsa
- 1891–1894Bulgarian Minister of War
- 1903–1907Bulgarian Minister of War
- 1912–1913Assistant (de facto) commander-in-chief of the Bulgarian army
- 1920–1923Minister plenipotentiary in France and Belgium
