Kingdom of Bulgaria
The Tsardom of Bulgaria (Bulgarian: Царство България, romanized: Tsarstvo Bǎlgariya), also referred to as the Third Bulgarian Tsardom (Bulgarian: Трето Българско Царство, romanized: Treto Balgarsko Tsarstvo), sometimes translated in English as the "Kingdom of Bulgaria", or simply Bulgaria, was a constitutional monarchy in Southeastern Europe, which was established on 5 October (O.S. 22 September) 1908, when the Bulgarian state was raised from a principality to a tsardom.[3]
Tsardom of BulgariaЦарство България
Tsarstvo Bǎlgariya
Tsarstvo Bǎlgariya
Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy
(1908–1935; 1943–1946)
- under military dictatorship
(1923–1926) - under military junta
(1934–1935) - under a communist dominant-party military junta
(1944–1946)
(1935–1943) (de facto)
5 October 1908
1912–1913
10 August 1913
1915–1918
27 November 1919
9 June 1923
19 May 1934
1935
7 September 1940
9 September 1944
15 September 1946
122,134 km2 (47,156 sq mi)
4,580,000
Ferdinand, founder of the royal family, was crowned a Tsar at the Declaration of Independence, mainly because of his military plans and for seeking options for unification of all lands in the Balkans region with an ethnic Bulgarian majority (lands that had been seized from Bulgaria and given to the Ottoman Empire in the Treaty of Berlin).
The state was almost constantly at war throughout its existence, lending to its nickname as "the Balkan Prussia". For several years Bulgaria mobilized an army of more than 1 million people from its population of about 5 million, and in the 1910s it engaged in three wars – the First and Second Balkan Wars, and the First World War. Following the First World War the Bulgarian army was disbanded and forbidden to exist by the Allied Powers, and all plans for national unification of the Bulgarian lands failed.
Less than two decades later Bulgaria entered the Second World War on the side of the Axis Powers and once again found itself on the losing side, until it switched sides to the Allies in September 1944. In 1946, the monarchy was abolished, its final Tsar was sent into exile, and the Tsardom was replaced by the People's Republic of Bulgaria.
Demographics[edit]
Ethnic, linguistic and religious composition[edit]
Since the population was 85% ethnic Bulgarian, there was relatively little social strife aside from the conflict between the haves and have-nots. Most inhabitants of Sofia maintained close ties to the countryside, but this did not prevent a rift between the peasants and urban class (i.e. Sofia versus everyone else), although some were the result of deliberate manipulation by politicians seeking to take advantage of traditional peasant distrust of the "effeminate city slicker". Mostly, however, it was due to a quarrel between the rulers and the ruled. Around 14% of the population were Muslims, mostly Turks (i.e. the remnant of the landowning class), but also a handful of so-called "Pomaks" (ethnic Bulgarians who practiced Islam). The Muslim population was alienated from the dominant Orthodox Christians both due to religious and historical reasons.
Economy[edit]
Overview[edit]
The Bulgarian state at the turn of the 20th century was rural, agrarian, relatively unindustrialised and economically backward nation, in which the economical development hampered by wars and territorial loses. Around 37.8% of the population of about 4.3 million were rural peasants; in 1910, urban dwellers accounted for 19.1% of the total population, a figure that had remained relatively unchanged since Bulgaria had gained independence from Ottoman rule almost 30 years earlier. The literacy rate was low: in 1900 it was 58% in the capital Sofia, 40% in all other cities and 15% in rural areas. The agrarian character of Bulgarian society was reflected in Bulgarian industry, which was completely dominated by textile, food and beverage production: in 1911 these sectors accounted for almost 90% of total Bulgarian factory production. Moreover, Bulgarian industry was extremely inefficient: per capita production was only 28.3 leva (the Bulgarian currency unit) compared to 1,128 per capita in the US; even Russian industry proved more efficient at about 150 leva per capita.[62] Two years after independence, in 1910, the gross national product (GNP-PPP) per capita was $270, last in Europe and the Balkans. Due to the Balkan Wars, the financial cost against the Ottoman Empire alone was 1.3 billion francs.[63] External trade fell drastically in 1913, with exports reduced by 40% and imports by 11%. This led to a soaring trade deficit of over 87 million levs by 1914.[64][65] Before the war, grain had been a leading Bulgarian export commodity with the most productive area being Dobruja. The state took special care for the development of the region; it built railways to carry grain and other exports to the port of Varna, whose facilities had been developed at great cost. In 1912, it handled more goods than Salonika.[66] By 1938, it had risen to $420, putting Bulgaria ahead of Yugoslavia, Romania, Poland, Portugal, and civil war Spain on this measure.[67] Real GDP per capita in 1939, equated to a 2011 dollar value, was $2,649, the third lowest in Europe after Yugoslavia and Romania. By 1939, 73.5% of manufacturing revenue came from agriculture, and 26.5% from industry and construction.[68] Over 82% of the workforce in 1924 was in agriculture, and this percentage remained almost unchanged until 1945.[69] The unstable political situation and internal conflicts caused the Kingdom of Bulgaria to be the poorest, or among the poorest countries in Europe.
Sectors[edit]
While more successful than the rest of Eastern Europe, Bulgarian agriculture still suffered from the handicaps of backward technology and especially rural overpopulation and scattered plots (due to the traditional practice of a peasant dividing his land equally among all surviving sons). And all agricultural exports were harmed by the onset of the Great Depression. Still, the country avoided a large food crisis.[70] Thousands of peasant workers engaged in agricultural activities became casualties during the wars. The number of available horses, sheep, cattle and livestock was between 20% and 40% lower. The single most damaging event was the loss of Southern Dobruja: it had accounted for 20% of Bulgarian grain production before the wars and contained the largest and most developed Bulgarian farming communities.[71] This, combined with bad weather, held the harvest of all crops to 79% of the pre-war level in 1914.[71] On the other hand, an underdeveloped economy meant that Bulgaria had little trouble with debt and inflation. Just under half of the industry was owned by foreign companies in contrast to the nearly 80% of Romanian industry. Agricultural productivity was very low. Plots were small and almost exclusively under 20 hectares (50 acres), but they were worked intensively and even the tiniest 2-hectare (5-acre) farms often produced crops for market sale. As elsewhere in Eastern Europe, Bulgarian peasants traditionally grew grains for their landowners. After the war, they could not be effectively marketed due to competition from the United States and Western Europe. However, they were able to switch with little difficulty to garden crops and tobacco in contrast to other countries where the peasantry suffered harder due to continued reliance on maize and wheat. By the end of the 1930s, Bulgaria was producing on average twice as much per hectare as developed European countries, including those with worse climatic or soil conditions than Bulgaria.[40] Between 1934 and 1945, the average area of arable land fell from 0.5 to 0.4 hectares per farm. By 1945 there were 1.2 million farms in the country, almost all of them small and unable to support themselves. Only large farms increased in area over the same period, but they held only 2% of the arable land.[72] The fragmentation of land was due to family inheritance patterns and the need to provide land for the growing rural population. In 1930, nearly 50% of the agricultural labor force was unemployed, and winter employment dropped to 30%.[72] Deflation and increased taxes to stop foreign debt caused the total income of the rural population to drop down half of it between 1929 and 1933.[73]
The industrial sector is weak and does not play a significant role in the economy. Between 1895 and 1928 a number of measures were taken to stimulate industry, such as duty-free imports of machinery, tax exemptions and low freight rates. In the period between World War I and the Great Depression, especially between 1926 and 1929, industrial output doubled.[40] The increase was mainly in textiles, pottery, and electricity; almost all other industries, including milling and food processing, leather, woodworking and metalworking were weakened. In the 1930s many of the incentive measures were withdrawn, and the establishment of new enterprises was virtually prohibited. Existing ones continued to be uncompetitive. By 1941, there were 3,467 private, 130 state-owned, and 275 cooperative enterprises in the kingdom, with an average of 26 workers.[74] In that year, 41.3% of industry consisted of small-scale manufacturing and handicrafts, 54.6% of larger-scale manufacturing, and 4.1% represented construction activities.[68] Internationally, Bulgaria lagged behind the leading European industrial countries.[40]
E. Curtis, Glenn (1993). (PDF). Federal Research Division. ISBN 0844407518.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
