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Milan Milenković, MA
University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy, Belgrade, Republic of Serbia

 

THE COMINFORM EMIGRATION IN BULGARIA

Vol. XLIII, 1/2025, pp. 147-162
https://doi.org/10.29362/ist20veka.2025.1.mil.147-162

 

ABSTRACT/RESUME:

The Bulgarian authorities completely controlled the Yugoslav political emigration, whose members were also economically dependent on the Bulgarian government. The political activities of the emigration, which were financed and directed by the Bulgarian authorities, were limited to propaganda work and actions of an espionage and sabotage nature, which can be used to reconstruct to a certain extent the attitude of the Cominform countries towards Yugoslavia in the various phases of the conflict. The first sabotage actions were aimed at creating parallel party organisations and establishing links with people within the FPRY who were known to support the Cominform resolution. The aim of these actions was to provoke organised resistance, as an uprising against the Yugoslav government and the CPY was expected at the beginning of the conflict. Since there was no change of government in Yugoslavia, the Bulgarian authorities began to use emigrants to collect military and economic data that could be useful in the event of war. On the other hand, the propaganda activities of political emigration from Bulgaria had very little impact in Yugoslavia, except among the members of the Bulgarian national minority. Since these actions were directed towards the eastern parts of Yugoslavia, especially the area of the Yugoslav-Bulgarian border, the population there retained in their collective memory an extremely negative memory of Bulgaria’s role in both world wars. The Yugoslav authorities capitalised on this sentiment and fuelled it with newspaper articles reminding the population of the Bulgarian occupation and war crimes. In the early 1950s, news of espionage and sabotage as well as the reawakened memories of Bulgaria’s role in the previous war fuelled the war psychosis among the Yugoslav population, especially in the border zone. At the end of 1949, great disappointment spread among the emigrants, which was influenced by several factors. The emigrants were dissatisfied with the attitude of the Bulgarian authorities, as their material situation was constantly deteriorating, especially in the case of economic emigrants. On the other hand, the demobilisation of the Bulgarian army at the end of 1949 had a particularly negative effect on the mood of the former Yugoslav officers. The Bulgarian authorities also used measures to punish the emigrants, especially if they were suspected of being agents of the UDB or of acting outside the framework set by the Bulgarian authorities. Frequent disputes within the emigration, mutual distrust between the emigration and the Bulgarian authorities, the categorisation of emigrants and the lack of political changes in Yugoslavia constantly increased the disappointment. Thus, the Cominform emigration in Bulgaria represented a dysfunctional and often non-ideological group of dissidents. After the normalisation of relations between the two sides, it lost its political role completely, and the issue of Yugoslav emigration led to friction in relations between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.

 

KEYWORDS: Cominform, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, emigration, Communism

 

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