Signature of Tsar Boris III
Boris III, Tsar of Bulgaria (January 30, 1894 –
August 28, 1943), originally Boris Klemens Robert Maria Pius
Ludwig Stanislaus Xaver, son of Ferdinand I, came to the throne in 1918 upon
the abdication of his father, following Bulgaria's defeat
in World War I. This was the country's second major defeat in only five years, after the
disastrous Second Balkan War (1913). Under the Treaty of Neuilly, Bulgaria was forced to cede new territories and pay crippling reparations
to its neighbors, thereby threatening political and economic stability. Two political forces, the Agrarian Union and the
Communist Party, were calling for the overthrowing of the monarchy and the change of the government. It was in these
circumstances that Boris succeeded to the throne.
Early reign
One year after Boris's accession, Aleksandar Stamboliyski (or
Stambolijski) of the Bulgarian People's Agrarian Union was elected prime minister. Though popular with the large peasant
class, Stambolijski earned the animosity of the middle class and military, which lead to his toppling in a military coup on 9
June 1923. In 1925, there was a short border war with Greece which was resolved with the help of the League of Nations. Also in 1925, there were two attempts on Boris's life perpetrated by leftist
extremists. After the second attempt, the military in power exterminated in reprisals several thousand communists and agrarians
including representatives of the intelligentsia.
In the coup on May 19, 1934, the Zveno
military organisation established a dictatorship and abolished the political parties in Bulgaria. King Boris was reduced to the
status of a puppet king as a result of the coup.[1] In the
following year, he staged a counter-coup and assumed control of the country by establishing a regime loyal to him. The political
process was controlled by the Tsar, but a form of parliamentary rule was re-introduced, without the restoration of the political
parties.[2]
Boris married Giovanna of Italy, daughter of Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, first in Assisi in October
1930 (attended by Benito Mussolini), and then at an Orthodox ceremony in Sofia. The marriage produced a daughter,
Maria Louisa, in January 1933, and a son and heir to the throne,
Simeon, in 1937.
World War 2
In the early days of World War II, Bulgaria was neutral, but powerful groups in the
country swayed its politics toward Germany (whom they had also allied with in World War I), which had gained initial sympathies by forcing Romania to cede southern Dobruja back to Bulgaria. In 1941, Boris reluctantly allied himself with the Axis
Powers in an attempt to recover Macedonia from Greece and Yugoslavia that was lost by Bulgaria under the Treaty of Neuilly. However, in spite of this loose alliance, Boris was not willing to render
full and unconditional cooperation with Germany, and the only German presence in Bulgaria was along the railway line which passed
through it to Greece.
In early 1943, Nazi officials requested that Bulgaria send its Jewish population to
Poland. The request caused a public outcry, and a campaign whose most prominent leaders were
Parliament Vice-Chairman Dimitar Peshev and the head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Archbishop Stefan, was organized.[citation needed] Following this campaign Boris
refused to permit the extradition of Bulgaria's 50,000 Jews. Nonetheless, he did sanction the German demand for the extradition
of 13,000 Jews from those territories re-occupied by Bulgaria. These two decisions have led to a position today where large
numbers of people regard Boris as a hero for 'saving' Bulgaria's Jews, and large numbers revile him for condemning those of the
occupied territories. The extent to which the King was able to influence events in either case remains a matter of debate.
King Boris and Adolf Hitler
Most irritating for Hitler, however, was the Tsar's refusal to declare war on the Soviet
Union or send Bulgarian troops to the Eastern front.
On the 9 August 1943, Hitler summoned Boris to a stormy meeting at Rastenburg,
East Prussia, where Tsar Boris arrived by plane from Vrajdebna on Saturday 14 August. While Bulgaria had declared a 'symbolic' war on the distant United Kingdom and the United States, at that meeting Boris once
again refused to get involved in the war against the Soviet Union, giving as two major
reasons for his unwillingness to send troops to Russia -- first, that many ordinary Bulgarians had strong Russophile sentiments;
and second, that the political and military position of Turkey remained unclear. The 'symbolic' war against the Western Allies,
however, turned into a disaster for the citizens of Sofia as the city was heavily bombarded by the
US, and the British Royal Air Force, in 1943 and 1944.
Death
Shortly after returning to Sofia, Boris died of apparent heart failure. He had complained of chest pains for some months and
had put it down to angina.[citation needed] Conspiracy theories instantly
sprang up, many choosing to believe that he was poisoned by Hitler in an attempt to put a more obedient government in place. The
evening before the illness occurred, Boris had an official dinner in the Italian embassy. Others suggest that his death was a
Communist plot to destabilize the monarchy, and that Boris was poisoned while visiting the
Rila Monastery before getting ill. The question has never been settled and many people remain of the belief that Boris was
murdered, in spite of no evidence being available. Boris was succeeded by his six-year-old son Simeon II under a Regency Council headed by his brother, Prince Kyril of Bulgaria.
Following a large and impressive State Funeral at the Alexander Nevsky
Cathedral, Sofia, where the streets were lined with weeping crowds, the coffin of Tsar Boris III was taken by train to the
mountains and buried in Bulgaria's largest and most important monastery, the Rila
Monastery. After taking power in September 1944, the Communist-dominated government had his body exhumed and secretly
buried in the courtyard of the Vrana Palace near Sofia. At a later time the Communist
authorities removed the zinc coffin from Vrana and moved it to a secret location, which remains unknown to this day. After the
fall of communism, an excavation attempt was made at the Vrana Palace, in which only Boris's heart was found, as it had been put
in a glass cylinder outside the coffin. The heart was taken by his widow in 1993 to Rila Monastery where it was reinterred.
Ancestors
See also
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
References
- Bulgaria in the Second World War by Marshall Lee Miller, Stanford University Press, 1975.
- Boris III of Bulgaria 1894-1943, by Pashanko Dimitroff, London, 1986, ISBN 0-86332-140-2
- Crown of Thorns by Stephane Groueff, Lanham MD., and London, 1987, ISBN 0-8191-5778-3
- The Betrayal of Bulgaria by Gregory Lauder-Frost, Monarchist League Policy Paper, London, 1989.
- The Daily Telegraph, Obituary for "HM Queen Ioanna of the Bulgarians", London, 28 February 2000.
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
