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The extent of fascism in Bulgaria is contentious.[1][2] Many authors state that it never became a mass movement, remaining marginal there,[3][4][5] and proved considerably less successful than in the neighboring Balkan states.[6] Bulgaria's fascists were not only weak, divided and lacking clear ideology, but their worldview differed significantly from that of Italian Fascism and German Nazism.[7] Thus a consensus has been reached between Bulgarian and international experts that Bulgaria's agrarian society and its monarchic system were the barriers before the fascist practices and establishment of fascist regime in the country, while Bulgaria's political system preserved a relative pluralism.[8][9][10] An alternative opinion is that some Bulgarian organizations with considerable membership, activity, and social presence had fully developed fascist ideology by the late 1930s, but they neither came to power, nor participated in the government of the country.[11] In fact, fascist organizations did not take power within the framework of the royal dictatorships, but discourses close to fascism can be found in then Bulgarian governing elite.[12]
Although the Bulgarian Marxist historiography labelled the period 1935–1944, as "monarcho-fascism", the 1990s saw the end of the dispute with the Marxist ideological dogmas, and in 1993 came the end of the theory that Bulgarian fascism is an unquestionable fact.[13] Since then the label "fascism" has been openly challenged by Bulgarian scholars, but this led partially, to an untrue radical belief that fascism never existed in Bulgaria.[14][15] Regardless of the debates about whether or not there was fascism in Bulgaria, no historian denies the existence of political movements and organizations with ideologies sympathetic to Nazism and fascism.[16] What the local fascists were lacking, was enough totalitarian drive, as well as the figure of a führer, without whom they could not contest the authoritarian regime of Tsar Boris. Boris anyway succeeded to preserve the bourgeois social order,[17] but feared the use of these organizations by Germany, and tried to exert a strong control on them.[18]
- ^ Vassil Girginov; Peter Bankov (25 February 2014). Superman Supreme Fascist Body as Political Icon - Global Fascism. p. 82. ISBN 9781135296940.
The study of Fascism in Bulgaria is a contentious issue
- ^ Narratives Unbound Historical Studies in Post-communist Eastern Europe. Central European University Press. 15 July 2007. p. 459. ISBN 9789637326851.
The constantly simmering debate has flared up in several direct disputes
- ^ Constantin Iordachi, Fascism in Southeast Europe: A Comparison between Romania's Legion of the Archangel Michael and Croatia's Ustaša, p. 461, in In: Entangled Histories of the Balkans - Volume Two, Pages: 355–468; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004261914_006.
- ^ Fascist parties and organizations never became a mass movement in Bulgaria, but between 1934 and 1944 the country showed a pronounced sympathy for the Axis. For more see: Cyprian Blamires, (2006). World Fascism: A–K, Volume 1 of World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, Markus Hattstein - Bulgaria, pp. 107–108. ISBN 1576079406.
- ^ Despite significant political and economic crises, indigenous fascism remained split into a number of small movements that failed to become prominent political force in the country. The paper argues that Bulgarian fascist movements faced problems differentiating their goals and ideologies from other elements of the far right, highlighting the porous boundaries between the two movements. For more see: Frusetta, J. (2010). Fascism to Complete the National Project? Bulgarian Fascists' Uncertain Views on the Palingenesis of the Nation, East Central Europe, 37 (2–3), pp. 280–302.
- ^ David D. Roberts (2016). Fascist Interactions: Proposals for a New Approach to Fascism and Its Era, 1919–1945. Berghahn Books, p. 252, ISBN 9781785331312.
- ^ James Frusetta, Anca Glont, Interwar fascism and the post-1989 radical right: Ideology, opportunism and historical legacy in Bulgaria and Romania, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Volume 42, Issue 4, 2009, Pages 551-571, ISSN 0967-067X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2009.10.001.
- ^ In the late 1980s per Bulgarian Marxist historiography if 1920s were increasingly viewed as form a fascist political base, the mid-1930s would still be associated with fascism and its manifestation in Bulgaria. While this categorization was not accepted by Western historians, it was only after the political changes in 1989 that the label "fascism" was openly challenged by Bulgarian scholars and instead, the term "authoritarian regimes" was adopted to denote the country's increasing political centralization in the mid-1920s and, especially, from the mid-1930s. Currently, a consensus has been reached between Bulgarian and international experts who have recognized that Bulgaria's agrarian social structure as well as her monarchic rule were the major barriers towards the infiltration of fascist practices and establishment of fascism in the country...Despite the military coup of 19 May 1934, it is acknowledged that Bulgaria's political system preserved a relative pluralism in its leading (governmental) sector up to the very eve of the communist takeover (1944). For more see: Svetla Baloutzova (2011). Demography and Nation: Social Legislation and Population Policy in Bulgaria, Central European University Press, p. 97, ISBN 6155211922.
- ^ The Western authorities on fascism categorically deny that a fascist regime ever existed in Bulgaria. For more see: Roumen Daskalov (2011) Debating the Past: Modern Bulgarian History: from Stambolov to Zhivkov, Central European University Press, p. 170, ISBN 6155053006.
- ^ In my opinion, Bulgaria cannot be defined as a classic fascist country, as can be said about then fascist Italy or Nazi Germany. We may treat Bulgaria as a pro-Nazi, pro-fascist country, but Bulgaria is not a fascist country at that time, says the Macedonian co-chairman of the joint Macedono-Bulgarian commission for historical and educational issues Dragi Gjorgiev. For more see: Фросина Димеска, интервjу со Драги Ѓоргиев - Имало бугарска окупација или инвазија, но не фашистичка. Радио Слободна Европа / Радио Слобода. 06.02.2022.
- ^ John R. Lampe; Constantine Iordachi (10 September 2020). Battling Over the Balkans. Central European University Press. pp. 193–196. ISBN 9789633863268.
Taking into account the specifics of fascism in its Italian prototype and its other European expressions, and its development under Bulgarian conditions, we may give the following definition of the phenomenon in Bulgaria: • Ideas and political programs similar to and identical with the fascist prototype spread in Bulgarian context. Organizations with several hundred to several dozens of thousands membership were founded. • Fascism in the form of a single political organization (but also as ideology) has not been in power and has not participated in the government of the country.[...] Three major stages may be discerned in terms of ideas, ideology, propaganda, and organization in the development of fascism in the Bulgarian context: • early fascism (proto-fascism), in the first half of the 1920s, a period of active initial acquaintance with, respectively, propaganda of Italian Fascism, and of formation of the first organizational nuclei of fascist activity; • an increasing interest in the phenomenon and of the rapid development of some organizations; a period coincident both with the world economic crisis and the rise of National Socialism in Germany, namely, the period of the second half of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s, until the coup of 1934; and • a fully developed fascist ideology of organizations with considerable membership, activity, and presence, in the second half of the 1930s and the beginning of the 1940s. For more see: Nikolai Poppetrov, Fashizmut v Bulgaria: razvitie i proyavi, translated by Rossitsa Gradeva. [Fascism in Bulgaria. Development and Activities] (Sofia: IK Kama, 2008), pp.7–9; 69–72.
- ^ Stefan Rohdewald, Mobilization and Sacralization of the Nation through Religious Remembrance (1918–1944). In: Sacralizing the Nation through Remembrance of Medieval Religious Figures in Serbia, Bulgaria and Macedonia. pp. 487–841; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004516311_005
- ^ Elenkov, Ivan & Koleva, Daniela. (2012). Historiography in Bulgaria After the Fall of Communism: Did "The Change" Happen?. HISTOREIN. 4. 10.12681/historein.87.
- ^ Vassil Girginov; Peter Bankov (25 February 2014). Superman Supreme Fascist Body as Political Icon - Global Fascism. p. 83. ISBN 9781135296940.
With the end of the Communist era in 1989, a radical view emerged suggesting that Fascism never existed in Bulgaria. This is not true. Although, Bulgaria's variant of Fascism was not as total as elsewhere, inspection of the country's history provides persuasive evidence of the domination of the Fascist ideological doctrine, the efforts of various government administrations and institutions to ensure its acceptance in society and their aspiration to create an 'Aryan' manhood.
- ^ "History must be known, because if we don't know it - we won't know the future either. Now it's becoming especially relevant, because historical knowledge has recently turned out to be extremely important. And the categorical opinion of historical science is that there was no fascist regime in Bulgaria" said the historian Prof. Nikolay Ovcharov. For more see: Проф. Овчаров: Трябва да използваме внимателно термина фашизъм. Факти.бг, 02.02.2022.
- ^ Божин Трайков, От антикомунизъм към фашизъм.BODIL.bg, 16.01.2019.
- ^ Werner, Menski, '7 Transcending Modernity: the Postmodern Reconstruction of Hindu Law', Hindu Law: Beyond Tradition and Modernity (Delhi, 2009; online edn, Oxford Academic, 18 Oct. 2012), https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195699210.003.0007, accessed 19 Aug. 2022.
- ^ Поппетров, Николай. Фашизмът в България. Развитие и прояви. "Кама", 2008. стр. 97-98, ISBN 978-954-9890-92-1.