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Peasants in Power: Alexander Stamboliski and the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union, 1899-1923 PDF

287 Pages·1977·13.922 MB·English
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Peasants in Power Peasants in Power Alexander Stamboliski and the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union, 1899-1923 JOHN D. BELL PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS Princeton, New Jersey Copyright © 1977 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be found on the last printed page of this book Publication of this book has been aided by the Paul Mellon Fund of the Princeton University Press This book has been composed in VIP Times Roman Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey Princeton Legacy Library edition 2019 Paperback ISBN: 978-0-691-65544-4 Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-691-65686-1 FOR SUSAN Content s PREFACE ίχ ABBREVIATIONS XIV I Bulgaria at the End of the Nineteent h Century 3 II The Birth of the Agrarian Union 22 III Alexander Stamboliski and the Theory and Practice of Agrarianism 55 IV The Agrarian Union and the Wars 85 V The Road to Power 122 VI The Agrarians in Power: Domestic Reforms 154 VII The Agrarians in Power: Foreign Policy 184 VIII The Overthrow of the Agrarian Governmen t 208 AFTERMATH 242 BIBLIOGRAPH Y 247 INDEX 263 Vll Tables 1. Land Distribution in Bulgaria in 1897 13 2. Elections for the XIV National Assembly, May 25, 1908 82 3. Elections for the XVI National Assembly, November 24,1913 110 4. Elections for the XVIII National Assembly, August 17, 1919 143 5. Elections for the XIX National Assembly, March 28, 1920 152 6. Sources of the State Land Fund 167 7. Composition of BANUDruzhbi in 1921 and 1922 215 vni Preface SCHOLARS interested in the modern history of Eastern Europe have traditionally focused on such problems as nationalism and nationality conflicts, the breakdown of international relations, and the roots of East European Communism. Agrarianism—the rise of organized peasant movements—has received relatively little at- tention. To an extent this is understandable, since in none of the East European states did the Agrarians create viable and enduring institutions, and as E. H. Carr has written: "History is . . . a rec- ord of what people did, not of what they failed to do." Still, the Agrarians in their prime created mass political movements and were able to bid seriously for power and to propose a number of original solutions to the problems besetting their peoples before succumbing to domestic reaction, economic depression, war, and Sovietization. If the full dynamic of East European politics is to be understood, we should know the Agrarian contribution to it even if the Agrarians themselves were unable to overcome their rivals. This book will explore in as much depth as the available sources permit the history of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union—the strongest of the East European organizations—from its founding to the overthrow of its government in 1923. I have attempted to find the causes for its appearance, to explain its ideology and program, and to evaluate its accomplishments and failures in both domestic and foreign policy. Inevitably, this has led me to concentrate on the career of Alexander Stamboliski, who guided and inspired the BANU during its rise to power. Thus, this book is a political biography of both a movement and a man. In January 1968 I rode a bus to the western outskirts of Sofia to visit the house in which Stamboliski had lived while Prime Minis- ter, preserved now along with a small museum devoted to his life. Arriving before the guide, I encountered a peasant, short and thin, about sixty years old, whose "weathered" features as well as his IX Alexander Stamboliski and his father, 1921. From Album Alexandre StamboU'iski, photographies et facsimiles (Sofia, 1964; Fbtoizdat).

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