Confronting The Urban Crowd Bulgarian S
Confronting The Urban Crowd Bulgarian S
Confronting The Urban Crowd Bulgarian S
Andreas Lyberatos
Institute for Mediterranean Studies/FORTH, Rethymno
Mass public manifestations (violent or not) are multifaceted and complex phe-
nomena which lend themselves to various interpretative approaches. They usu-
ally retain a zone impervious even to the most scrupulous observer or historian’s
eye. Moreover, their understanding is further perplexed by the fact that their very
development is from the outset closely intertwined with the struggle to encode
them and to crystallise their social meaning. The anti-Greek movement and dis-
turbances of 1906 in Bulgaria present an additional signiicant dificulty: they are
of that kind of ‘event’ that, despite being a massive and enduring phenomenon
in the summer of 1906, occupying on an everyday basis Bulgaria’s political life,
have not found place – not even a passing reference – in the authoritative, mul-
tivolume History of Bulgaria published by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
They are of that sort of event to which any inapt or unbalanced reference in a
public lecture or in a school textbook, in either Greece or Bulgaria, could result
in the outbreak of one of those ‘identity scandals’ which torture our late-modern
cultures. They are nevertheless, and at the same time, of that sort of phenomena
whose study is both indispensable for understanding the social and political trans-
formations of early twentieth-century Bulgarian society as well as necessary for
exploring the common experiences that the people of the then rival Greek and
Bulgarian nation-states underwent.
A number of more or less recent works have given the thrust for the disentan-
glement of this signiicant topic from the veils of silence and nationalist ideology
and its opening to rational historical inquiry. Among them we should mention the
pioneering article of Mina Hristemova on the anti-Greek movement in Stenima-
chos (Asenovgrad); the notes of Valeri Kolev on ‘Tolerance and Nationalism’ in
177
A N D R E A S LY B E R AT O S
Bulgaria before the Balkan Wars, Theodora Dragostinova’s work on the Greeks
of Bulgaria, Roumen Avramov’s older and fresh work on Anchialo and, last but
not least, Yura Konstantinova’s article on the stance of Bulgarian political forces
vis-à-vis the 1906 anti-Greek movement.1 These works by Bulgarian colleagues
are contrapuntal not only to older but also to rather fresh Greek and Bulgarian
historiographical production. To give an example, the most recent work in Greek
tackling the anti-Greek movement in Plovdiv contains a fair deal of elitist and
Eurocentric bias as it nearly identiies the Bulgarian people with the crowd that
was led by unsuccessful and jealous professionals of the same backward sort.2
A phenomenon of nationalist agitation on the interface between domestic
politics and geopolitics such as the 1906 anti-Greek movement in Bulgaria of-
fers, of course, itself readily to nationalist reading. Nationalist imaginary easily
reduces it to a matter of relations and conlicts between nations, considered as
the actors of history par excellence, and ‘naturalises’ it by employing interpreta-
tions of expressive causality: the events, and especially their violent moments,
are identiied and narrated as expressions (stages, or culminations) of underly-
ing causes and deeper processes, for example, in our case ‘the age-old enmity
between Greeks and Bulgarians’ or ‘the determination of the Bulgarian state to
eliminate the Greek minority’. Their concrete appearances are at a second level
contextualised and attributed either to foreign policy calculations or to spontane-
ous popular reactions: the Bulgarian state’s intention to press the Greek state to
withdraw the armed bands from Macedonia or its intention to gain concessions
from the Great Powers in compensation for their prospective granting of Crete
to Greece are examples of the irst reasoning; the spontaneous reactions of the
Bulgarian people to the atrocities committed by the Greek bands in Macedonia,
of the second.3
1 M. Hristemova, ‘Antigrǎckoto dviženie v Asenovgrad prez 1906 g.’ [The anti-Greek
movement in Asenovgrad in 1906], Godišnik na Istoričeskija Muzej v Plovdiv, 2
(2004), 102–113; Valeri Kolev, ‘Beležki vǎrhu tolerantnostta i nacionalizma’ [Notes
on tolerance and nationalism], http://vkolev22.blog.bg/viewpost.php?id=257121 (ac-
cessed 27 Mar 2011); T. Dragostinova, ‘Speaking National: Nationalizing the Greeks of
Bulgaria, 1900–1939’, Slavic Review, 67 (2008), 154–181; R. Avramov, Komunalnijat
kapitalizǎm [Communal Capitalism], vol. 2 (Soia, 2007), 562–564; (see also R. Avra-
mov’s contribution in the present volume); Y. Konstantinova, ‘The Anti-Greek Move-
ment in Bulgaria (1906) in the Perspective of the Bulgarian Political Elite: Traditional
Approaches and New Ideological Trends’, Études Balkaniques, 45/4 (2009), 3–30.
2 S. Ploumidis, Ethnotiki symviosi sta Valkania: Ellines kai Voulgaroi sti Filippoupo-
li, 1878–1914 [Ethnic coexistence in the Balkans: Greeks and Bulgarians in Plovdiv,
1878–1914] (Athens 2006), 303–371.
3 See among others, S. Sfetas, ‘Oi anthellinikoi diogmoi stin Anatoliki Romilia kata to
etos 1906 sta plaisia tis voulgarikis kratikis politikis’ [The anti-Greek persecutions in
Eastern Rumelia during 1906 in the framework of the policy of the Bulgarian state],
178
BULg A R IA N S O C I ET Y A N D T h E 1906 A N T I-g R EEk MOVE M EN T
Despite the existence of evidence which might support some of the latter,
more concrete, interpretations, the general conceptualisation of the anti-Greek
movement as a side-effect of an international conlict has so far obstructed its
study as a political movement and social phenomenon in its own right. The aim
of this article is therefore to shift attention to the ‘domestic’ dimensions of the
movement and provide some thoughts and hypotheses concerning both its per-
ceptions and workings in early twentieth-century Bulgarian society.4
Nevertheless, before proceeding to this task, it is worth pausing briely on the
issue of the international causes and dimensions of the movement. If we were
willing to identify an immediate ‘external’ inluence for the emergence of the
movement, this would be not so much the action of the Greek bands in Mac-
edonia, even if this stood as the basic justiication for it: the most serious atroci-
ties carried out by the Greek bands, as, for example, those in Zagorichani (now
Vasiliada), took place more than one year before the outbreak of the anti-Greek
movement and provoked an immediate but rather weak mobilisation, which the
Bulgarian government decided and managed to calm down.5 The external incen-
tive for the resuming of the anti-Greek agitation in the following year was given
by the neighbouring Romanian government, which showed a different and more
decisive pattern of action, despite its less impressive aspirations in Macedonia.
The ‘popular anger’ expressed in mass demonstrations against the anti-Romanian
action of the Greek bands in Macedonia was controlled by the police and ‘satis-
ied’ by successive waves of expulsions of wealthy and inluential Greeks from
Valkanika Symmeikta, 5–6 (1993–94), 77–91, 82, 89–90; T. Hadzianastassiou, ‘Oi el-
linikes koinotites tis Voulgarias: Syntome istoriki eisagogi’ [The Greek communities of
Bulgaria: Short historical introduction], in X. Zymari-Kodzageorgi (ed.), Oi Ellines tis
Voulgarias: Ena istoriko tmima tou perifereiakou ellinismou (Thessaloniki 2000), 49–
82; N. Prodanov, ‘Antigrackoto dviženie vǎv Varna prez 1906 g.: osnovni faktologični
aspekti’ [The anti-Greek movement in Varna during 1906: basic aspects of documen-
tation], VII Pontijski Četenija [Pontus Readings, vol. 7], (Varna 2003), 191–200; G.
Pecov, Varna 1879–1918 (Varna 2008).
4 The paper owes its existence to an older research project on Varna and its Greek com-
munity, undertaken jointly by the Institute for Mediterranean Studies of the Founda-
tion for Research and Technology and the Institute of Balkan Studies of the Bulgarian
Academy of Sciences. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my partner in this
project, Dr Varban Todorov, for his help with archival research.
5 Varatassis to the Greek ministry of foreign Affairs, Plovdiv, 14 Apr 1905, Diplomat-
ic and Historical Archive of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, hereafter AYE],
1905/55.1/II; H. Silianov, Osvoboditelnite borbi na Makedonia [The liberation strug-
gles in Macedonia], vol. 2 (Soia 1943), 234–237. It is revealing that the nationalist
press in Greece praised the Bulgarian government for the security measures taken on
the occasion of the anti-Greek demonstration in Varna. Embros, 9/3048, 15 Apr 1905.
179
A N D R E A S LY B E R AT O S
6 For a detailed analysis, see D. Kontogiorgis’ contribution to this volume. For a brief
description of the events, see S. Sfetas, ‘To istoriko plaisio ton ellino-roumanikon poli-
tikon sheseon (1866–1913)’ [The historical framework of Greek–Romanian political
relations], Makedonika, 33 (2001–2002), 23–48, 37–44.
7 K. Popov, ‘Pogled vǎrhu ikonomičeskoto razvitie v Bǎlgarija’ [A look at the econom-
ic situation of Bulgaria], Spisanie na Bǎlgarskoto Ikonomičesko Družestvo, 11/4–5
(1907), 233; Cf. M. Zlatanov’s justiication for his rejection of an open-air meeting in
Soia, Priaporec, 9/32, 20 Jul 1906.
8 Priaporec, 8/58, 17 Sept 1905.
9 P. Nejkov, Spomeni [Memoirs] (Soia, 1990), 107–110.
10 On the crisis in Bulgaro–Romanian relations, provoked by the ‘terrorism export’ by
Boris Sarafov’s Supreme Macedonian–Adrianople Committee (VMOK) and the mur-
der in Bucharest of Ştefan Mihăileanu, editor of the Peninsula Balcanică (Balkan Pen-
insula) newspaper, see Ž. Popov, Bălgarskijat nacionalen văpros v bălgarorumănskite
otnošenia, 1878–1902 [The Bulgarian national question in Bulgaro–Romanian rela-
tions, 1878–1912] (Soia 1994), 426–464; D. Rizov, Romǎno–bǎlgarskijat konlikt [The
Romano–Bulgarian conlict] (Soia 1900).
11 Priaporec, 8/116–119, 11–18 Feb 1906.
180
BULg A R IA N S O C I ET Y A N D T h E 1906 A N T I-g R EEk MOVE M EN T
and Bulgarian anti-Greek movement of the early twentieth century further would
not only give us a better idea of the development of the long-established relations
and networks of inluence across the Danube, but also help us better understand
the emergence of a monitoring system between the Balkan nation-states and its
signiicance for their rival and parallel development as parts of a common region.
Dwelling on the Romano–Bulgarian ‘coalition’ theme is, however, beyond of the
aims of this paper. We should mention, though, that the theme was quite popular
in the Greek press of the time: the irst spurts of the Bulgarian movement in Varna
were taking place simultaneously with a big demonstration in Bucharest. The
Danube Lions (Romania and Bulgaria) seemingly had undertaken a joint struggle
against the Mediterranean Herculeses! (see ig. 1).
181
A N D R E A S LY B E R AT O S
12 D. Petkov, minister for internal affairs, to the prefect of Varna, Soia, 17 Mar 1906,
Dǎržaven Arhiv Varna [State Archive – Varna, hereafter: DA–Varna], f. 78, op. 1, a.e.
18/267.
13 Izvestnik, 8/15, 5 Jun 1906; Den, 868 and 869, 5 and 6 Jun 1906.
14 Svoboden Glas, 2/19, 27 May 1906.
15 Haralambiev to the Bulgarian ministry of foreign affairs, telegram no. 5228, 3 Jun
1906; no. 5270, 5 Jun 1906; no. 5917, 24 Jun 1906; Central State Historical Archives,
Soia (hereafter TsDIA), f. 166k, op. 1, a.e. 1009/9–14; Selliniades to the Greek minis-
try of foreign affairs, 24 Jun 1906, AYE, 1906/72.8/I (Vice-consulate in Varna); Carapa-
nos to Skouzes, 5 and 10 Jul 1906, ibid.; Seliniadis to Greek diplomatic agency in Soia,
5 Jul 1906, AYE, 1906/72/IV; Izvestnik, 8/ 17 and 19, 24 Jun and 12 Jul 1906; Svoboden
Glas, 2/25, 8 Jul 1906; Cf. Prodanov, ‘Antigrackoto dviženie’.
16 S. Eldǎrov, ‘Družestvoto ‘Strandža’ i makedonskoto revolucionno dviženie (1896–
1900)’ [The ‘Strandža’ association and the Macedonian revolutionary movement],
Voennoistoričeski Sbornik, 59/5 (1990), 43–65.
17 Izvestnik, 8/ 16, 19 Jun 1906.
182
BULg A R IA N S O C I ET Y A N D T h E 1906 A N T I-g R EEk MOVE M EN T
The movement developed in this irst phase not only the forms of violent,
pogrom-like action – predominantly the terrorisation of the Greek inhabitants
through attacks by the crowd on Greek shops and houses18 – but also its cultural
vocabulary. Certain ‘rituals of provocation’, such as the donkey which, dressed
in the ecclesiastical garb of an archbishop and strung up with noisy tin cans, was
paraded along the harbour dock and the streets of the Greek quarter of the city
(ig. 2), and the efforts to have the local theatre company stage, on behalf of the
Bulgarian Patriot association, anti-Greek plays such as Vasil Drumev’s Ivanko
point to the reactivation of the old ‘anti-Phanariot’ themes of the Bulgarian Na-
tional Revival. This new wine in old bottles had nevertheless not only a different
taste in early twentieth century but also some new ingredients, since the ‘cunning’
Greek cleric had dirtied his hands in the bloodshed caused by the up-and-coming
igure of the ‘barbarous Greek Macedonia bandit’.19
Fig. 2. ‘Festive reception for the Greek Bishop Neofytos Ioannou Efendi in Varna on 3
June 1906’ (postcard)
18 Detailed description of the damage and (minor) casualties are contained in: AYE,
1906/64.2, Seliniadis to Skouzes, Varna, 8 August 1906; Cf. Haralambiev to Bulgarian
ministry of foreign affairs, TsDIA, f. 166k, op. 1, a.e. 1009/10–13.
19 Izvestnik, 8/15, 5 Jun 1906. For the donkey see also Priaporets, 18, 15 Jun 1906. For the
initial support of the theatre troupe ‘Napredăk’ by Izvestnik which turned into aggres-
sive attacks, see Svoboden glas, 2/15–29 Apr 1906; Izvestnik, 18, 3 Jul 1906.
183
A N D R E A S LY B E R AT O S
The success of the irst phase of the movement was initially conditioned on
the tolerance it enjoyed from the government. Although we can still not fully
reconstruct the moves behind the political scene, the existing oficial documents
and second-hand testimonies support the view that a part of the government at
least was aware and most probably involved in the emergence of the movement.
The situation within the government at the time of the outbreak of the distur-
bances was chaotic. The minister for internal affairs, Dimitar Petkov, was absent
abroad and the premier and minister for foreign affairs, General Racho Petrov,
claimed later that he did not open the letters and telegrams of the Bulgarian dip-
lomatic agent to Constantinople, Grigor Nachovich, who had informed him that
he had consented to the arrival of Archbishop Neofytos.20 The accusations of the
opposition that Racho Petrov deliberately failed to take any measures to prevent
the Varna events and that members of the governing party were involved in the
agitation seem justiied.21 The minister for education, Dr Ivan Shishmanov, ad-
mitted in his memoirs that both the prime minister and the minister for Justice,
Nikola Genadiev, well-known for his relations with the Macedonian committees
of Soia, were aware of and responsible for the emergence of the movement. He
also provides the remarkable information that, in a later phase of the movement,
the principal agitator, Petar Dragulev, spent the night before the burning of An-
chialo at the farm of the prime minister in Belovo.22 In an impressive manner, the
outbreak of the anti-Greek movement destroyed the fragile equilibrium which
the second Stambolovist government tried to maintain between two contradic-
tory political objectives: on the one hand, the outward-looking need to maintain
a moderate foreign policy proile after the Ilinden Uprising – a line that was per-
soniied by Grigor Nachovich and alluded to in the successes in late 1880s and
early 1890s of the policy of rapprochement with the Ottoman Empire followed
by Stefan Stambolov’s government – and, on the other, the inward-looking need
to appease the wound of Ilinden and show the patriotic determination for action
which would satisfy the Macedonian committees, with whom certain members of
the government had close relations.23
184
BULg A R IA N S O C I ET Y A N D T h E 1906 A N T I-g R EEk MOVE M EN T
prime minister by the leader of the Stambolovist People’s Liberal Party, Dimitar Pet-
kov.
24 Nov Vek, 1039, 9 Jun 1906.
25 Den, 889, 26 Jun 1906; Priaporets, 9/14, 6 Jun 1906.
26 The Radoslavist newspaper Narodni prava took a critical stance in the beginning, but
became more pro-movement after the more serious episodes in Plovdiv, Stanimaka
(Stenimachos) and Anchialo. The Popular Party’s newspaper Mir kept a critical stance
throughout the duration of the movement.
27 The sources for the map are both oficial documents (the telegrams and letters of vari-
ous prefects and state authorities preserved in TsDIA, f. 166K, op. 1, a.e. 1010, and
elsewhere) as well as evidence from the press (the pro-movement Večerna pošta con-
tains, expectedly, the fullest account).
28 Sliven subprefect of to Burgas prefect of, 22 August 1906, TsDIA, f. 166k, op. 1, a.e.
1012/31–2; P. Slavov to ministry of the interior, 9 Sept 1906, TsDIA, f. 166k, op. 1, a.e.
1010/153–4.
185
A N D R E A S LY B E R AT O S
186
Fig. 3. The waves of anti-Greek mass meetings, marked in blue, green and red
BULg A R IA N S O C I ET Y A N D T h E 1906 A N T I-g R EEk MOVE M EN T
29 For the ‘internationalisation’ of the issue, an important role was played by the mem-
orandum of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to the ambassadors of the Great Powers in
Istanbul. Circulaire adressée par le Patriarche Oecuménique aux Ambassadeurs des
Grandes Puissances à Constantinople, 14 août 1906 (Constantinople 1906). Cf. the
oficial answer of the Bulgarian government: Položenieto na Gǎrcite v Bǎlgarija: Ot-
govor na memoara na Carigradskija Patriarch ot 14 Avgust 1906 [The situation of
the Greeks in Bulgaria: Reply to the 14 August 1906 memorandum of the Patriarch of
Constantinople] (Soia 1906).
30 Gustave Le Bon, Psihologija na tălpata, trans. N. Čehlarov (Kiustendil 1905).
31 ‘It is a trait of the psychology of the crowds to fall under the leadership of extremist
elements, to act under the sentiment of revenge, instead of to conine itself to the useful
things it can gain from reason.’ Cf. Priaporets, 63, 1 Oct 1905.
32 Šišmanov, Dnevnik, 117.
33 Priaporets, 27, 27 Jun 1906; Nov Vek, 1045, 5 Jul 1906.
34 Mir, 12/ 1886, 4 Jul 1906.
187
A N D R E A S LY B E R AT O S
and property’ of its citizens. At the same time, the critiques of the bourgeois
and petty-bourgeois opposition (from the Popular Party to the Radical Demo-
crats) were capitalising on the national sentiment, accusing the government over
its cowardly foreign policy, ineffectiveness and speculation with the national
cause.35 On the contrary, the signiicant presence in Bulgaria of an organised so-
cialist movement, compared to, for example, neighbouring Greece, permitted the
development of a radical critique of the anti-Greek movement, not on the basis
of its tactics but on internationalist principles. All factions of the divided social-
ist party stood clearly and actively against the tide, providing at the same time in
their theoretical organs Novo Vreme and Novo Obshtestvo insightful analyses of
the movement.36
With its ‘spread beyond Varna’, the movement faced for the irst time since
its inception the challenges and opportunities of broadening its political ties and
social support and achieving political crystallisation and consolidation at the na-
tional level. Our knowledge of the movement’s networks of political activists and
supporters is still incomplete and begs more research. The pro-movement press
in Soia and the provinces, as well as other sources, helps us, however, to form a
rough idea. The anti-Greek movement emerged in a period of political fermen-
tation in Bulgarian nationalist activist circles. The ‘Macedonian conference’ of
December 1905 and the revitalisation of the Charity Associations (Blagotetelen
săjuz) for Macedonia, in which the Democratic Party sought to play a leading
role, represented a considerable effort to overcome the post-Ilinden crisis in the
Bulgaro-Macedonian movement.37 On the other hand, before that, in May and
June 1905, successive meetings were held in Soia with the aim of organising a
nationalist association of a broader character, which took initially the name Asso-
35 For an overview of the stance of the political parties vis-à-vis the anti-Greek movement,
see Y. Konstantinova, ‘The Anti-Greek Movement’.
36 ‘Glavolomna politika’ [Incredible policy], Novo vreme, 10/8 (August 1906), 449–456;
‘Pregled’ [Review], Novo obštestvo, 8 (August 1906), 750–754. The brochure of the
Narrow socialist Pavel Deliradev on the anti-Greek movement is a well-known and re-
markable example of early socialist Balkan internationalism. P. Deliradev, Antigrǎckoto
dviženie [The anti-Greek movement] (Soia 1906). Even the new faction of the Liberal
Socialists opposed actively the movement and had to face the consequences. The leader
of the party, Nikola Harlakov, gave a speech in Varna on July 30 against the anti-Greek
movement. The next day, the party congress in Varna was attacked by the nationalists.
K. Bozveliev, Moite spomeni [My memoirs] (Soia 1993), 368.
37 Convened in December 1905, the Macedonian congress conirmed the ongoing rift be-
tween the ‘nationalists’ and ‘internationalists’. See Demokrat, 1/14, 15 Dec 1905; In
Plovdiv’s Charity Association special care was taken to exclude militant Macedonians
or those who had suffered from the governing body, as the Greek consul in the city re-
ported. Zikos to the Greek MFA, 30 Dec 1905, AYE 1905/55.1/II; For the Varna Charity
Association, see Svoboden Glas, 2/ 15, 29 Apr 1906.
188
BULg A R IA N S O C I ET Y A N D T h E 1906 A N T I-g R EEk MOVE M EN T
38 Kolev, ‘Beležki’.
39 For the crucial role played by Symeon Radev, see Šismanov, Dnevnik, 116–117. Stoyan
Šangov’s Večerna pošta was nearly turned to an organ of movement’s supporters. For
the Macedonian activism of the Bǎlgaran literary-satiric circle, see Nejkov, Spomeni.
40 Večerna Pošta, 1762, 21 Jul 1906.
41 Ilija Kurtev (reserve oficer), Dr K. Spirkov (solicitor), H. Ustabašiev, P. Zografski
(secondary school teacher). Cf. Kolev, ‘Beležki’.
42 Večerna pošta, 1767, 25 Jul 1906. In the same issue: ‘The blood of Bulgarian-Macedo-
nians will fall on the Sultan’s head; the bloodshed yesterday in Soia will fall on Racho
Petrov’s head.’
43 S. Šangov’s newspaper compared this new organisation to the Romanian nationalist
organisation Defender of the Romanian Nation, Večerna pošta, 1815, 12 Sept 1906.
189
A N D R E A S LY B E R AT O S
by the mayor of Athens, Spyros Merkouris, remained a dream for the Bulgarian
Patriot association.44
Alongside the efforts for political legitimisation, the anti-Greek activists tried
during July 1906 to broaden the circles of social support by appealing to more
social and professional categories. The ‘faces in the crowd’, the social reservoir
of the movement, remained, both for contemporary observers and later research-
ers, largely out of sight. Most accounts stress the role played by the Macedonian
refugees, who were streaming to Varna and the other Bulgarian cities increasing-
ly after the Ilinden Uprising.45 Uprooted, embittered and insecure, they formed,
along with other urban poor strata, a susceptible audience and pool for anti-Greek
propaganda and action. More remarkable seems to have been the involvement,
both as activists and audience, of acting or dismissed civil servants, a social cat-
egory which had experienced over the previous ten years a devastating decline
in income and was facing at the beginning of the twentieth century the prospect
of destitution. The igure of the Broad Socialist Konstantin Bozveliev’s cousin,
a dismissed civil servant who had spent several years in jail and who proudly
admitted that he had played active role in the preparation of the burning of Anchi-
alo, is probably a typical example.46 Indeed, among the people who were arrested
as primary and secondary instigators of the September 6 meeting in Varna were
several former public servants.47 Finally, it is characteristic that one of the irst,
basic and virtually ubiquitous demands in the resolutions of the mass meetings
was for the dismissal of all public servants of Greek nationality. The demand does
not correspond at all with the real weight of the ethnic Greeks serving in the state
apparatus, who, according to the 1904 civil servant census, numbered 50 persons
in the whole country.48 The persistence with which it was pursued relects rather
the internal conlicts and the bifurcations of political radicalisation ongoing at the
44 ‘To simerinon sillalitirion’ [Today’s meeting], Patris, 16/4505, 9 Jul 1906; Skrip, 10 Jul
1906.
45 G. Genadiev, Bežancite vǎv Varna i Varnensko, 1878–1908 [The refugees in the city
and region of Varna] (Soia 1998), 26–60.
46 Bozveliev, Moite spomeni. 369–370.
47 TsDIA, f. 166k, op. 1, a.e. 1012/l.134–5.
48 Fifty civil servants in Bulgaria were Greek ‘according to mother tongue’, only for-
ty-three of them according to ‘nationality’. Rezultati ot prebrojavaneto na dǎržavnite
činovnici i služašti na 1-i juni 1904 godina [Results of the state oficials and servants
census of 1 June 1904] (Soia 1908), 16. Elected municipal employees are not included
in the above igure, but it is unlikely that they were signiicant in number. The 1911 cen-
sus reported 52 Greeks (according to mother tongue) in the state institutions and 267 in
elected municipal posts. Statistika na činovnicite i služaštite pri dǎržavnite i izbornite
učreždenija kǎm 1-i April 1911 g. [Statistics of the oficials and servants in the state and
municipal institutions around 1 Apr 1911] (Soia 1918), 184.
190
BULg A R IA N S O C I ET Y A N D T h E 1906 A N T I-g R EEk MOVE M EN T
beginning of the twentieth century among the civil oficialdom, as the beginnings
of public service rationalisation and the advent of the socialist-led trade union
movement were challenging the old party clienteles, especially the masses of
supporters appointed by the governing party.49 The short-lived Ruse newspapers
Rusenski rakovoditel and Ruschuk, successively issued in 1906 by the same pro-
Stambolovist editor, overtly engaged in antisemitic and anti-Greek propaganda
and were, at the same time, preoccupied with the civil service question. Echoing
the 1905 Russian Revolution and the fears it generated among the ruling classes,
Rusenski rakovoditel expressed the insecurities and advocated the interests of this
lumpenproletariat of oficialdom: ‘If the public servants in Russia were protected
with sound laws meeting their needs, if they were secured and their material con-
dition improved, would they go and mix with people who want regime change
and the destruction of the monarchy?’50
Through direct appeals and the extension of their demands, the activists of
the anti-Greek movement tried to broaden their audience by addressing the tra-
ditional strata of the petty bourgeoisie as well as the bourgeoisie proper. It is still
not possible to say how massive the response was of the artisans’ and shopkeep-
ers’ associations to the call of the organisers of the Soia meeting to march with
their lags in the demonstration; neither what their response was to the invitation
to send representatives to the August 6 pan-Bulgarian meeting convened with
the aim of establishing some coordination of the movement.51 It was, moreover,
during this second phase that the calls for the boycotting of Greek shops and the
embargoing of Greek imports emerged as demands and a form of action.52 Again,
it would be dificult to come up with a clear appraisal of the effectiveness these
tactics had in gaining bourgeois support for the movement. In certain cases, how-
ever, such as Varna, where Greek capitalists represented a signiicant antagonist
for the advancing Bulgarian bourgeoisie, it seems that the opportunity to exploit
and capitalise on the anti-Greek movement prevailed over the bourgeois fear and
aversion vis-à-vis the ‘vulgar’ practices of the crowd.
A few indicative examples are worth mentioning. Mihail (Mishel) Stefanov
Peichev, the son of the founder of the big banking and grain trading irm of Stefan
Hr. Peichev, was a Paris-educated lawyer and high-society playboy. He was the
191
A N D R E A S LY B E R AT O S
protagonist of the violent episode which resulted in a banking civil servant from
Pleven, Ilia Popov, being beaten and hospitalised, after he declined to participate
in a manifestation of ‘national brotherhood’ in Varna’s Grozd beer hall, organised
by Peichev and attended by Russian and Romanian leet oficers, and refused to
take off his hat when the beer hall orchestra played the Russian anthem.53 Several
months later, Mishel’s cousin Petar A. Peichev, a wholesale dealer of colonial
products, was elected vice-president of the organising committee of the 6 Sep-
tember 1906 meeting organised by the Bulgarian Patriot association, in this way
lending ‘elite credentials’ to the association at a time when it was facing overt
coercion by the government and was trying to shed its ‘lumpen’ proile.54 Apart
from the Peichevs, Gencho Genov, a very close friend of that family and member
of the bourgeois circles of Varna, took part in the occupation of the Greek Parask-
evas Nikolaou hospital and was one of the three members of the committee that
was elected to run it.55
It was in Varna and northeastern Bulgaria that the anti-Greek movement even-
tually entered the last phase of its decline, during August and September 1906.
The repeatedly postponed and delayed return from central Europe of the strong-
man of the Stambolovist cabinet, interior minister Petkov, signalled the deinite
decision of the government to suppress the agitation. Both the ineficient organi-
sation and the strong presence of the police and army conined the magnitude
and dynamics of the new pan-Bulgarian meeting, convened in Plovdiv by the
Bulgarian Patriot association on August 6.56 Petkov ordered the violent coercion
of every spurt in agitation, dismissed higher functionaries held responsible for
the state’s passivity and even travelled himself to Burgas and Varna, where he
remained for one week in order to take control of the situation.57 The inal efforts
for anti-Greek manifestations in Varna on September 6 and 24 were violently sup-
pressed and their Bulgarian Patriot instigators arrested.58
Petkov’s quick and successful coercion of the anti-Greek movement might
have conirmed for a moment the views of those who were arguing with the
Athens Athinai newspaper that ‘without the support of the state, no movement
53 The incident took place just a couple of days before the outbreak of the anti-Greek
movement, on the occasion of the inauguration of the new port of Varna. Svoboden
Glas, 2/19, 27 May 1906.
54 Izvestnik, 9/25, 10 Sept 1906. For the Pejčev family, see in detail: G. Pecov, Varna,
1879–1919 g., (Varna 2008), 93–106.
55 Večerna pošta, 7/1753, 11 Jul 1906.
56 AYE, 1906/64.2.
57 Narodni prava, 59, 6 August 1906; Priaporec, 41, 10 August 1906; Izvestnik, 23, 19
August 1906.
58 Izvestnik, 25 and 27, 10 and 30 Sept 1906; TsDIA, f. 166k, op. 1, a.e. 1012/l. 134.
192
BULg A R IA N S O C I ET Y A N D T h E 1906 A N T I-g R EEk MOVE M EN T
Here is the centre of the capital, the point where the main streets of the city inter-
sect. Quiet and deserted . . . Deadly silence . . . A moment passed, a sea of people
pouring in from the southern side of the broad boulevard, moving upwards with a
dull noise like an underground whirr. Nobody is speaking. A big, dark wave of hu-
man bodies and heads grows and ills the boulevard. The tramways, empty, halted.
The silence becomes absolute.The balconies are illed with people trying to take a
look down below. Breathlessly, they follow the inlux of the wave. It is moving . . .
without the slightest noise.61
193