Here, we are going to talk about the anarchists in Yambol, since in those times, the town was a kind of a center of this movement in Bulgaria. Its ideas originated here, and its whole activity began here, too.

The ideas of anarchism started paving their way to Yambol at the end of the nineteenth century. At the time, a good deal of Yambol young people learnt about Proudhon and Kropotkin during their studies at the European schools. The anarchists – those were mostly intellectuals, pupils and students – the most uncompromising idealists, who were displeased with the substitution of the ideals for freedom and unity of the enlightenment.

In nineteen ten, there were lots of followers of the anarchism in Yambol. Many pupils from the high school adopted its ideas for upbringing free and unbounded persons, and became their keen followers. The literary group “Luch” combined both the literary search of the pupils, and the passion of most of them for the ideas of anarchism.

The anarchists rejected war as the greatest human evil. It was said that even in the trenches at Dobro Pole, Dimitar Hlebarov and Ivan Mishev from the twenty-ninth Yambol foot-company, agitated their peers to put down the weapon and go home.

After the world war one the anarchism in the town gained even bigger popularity. Georgi Sheitanov was among its main ideologists. He was one of the initiators for organizing a United Front among anarchists, communists, agrarians, and non-party members against the government of the Democratic Accord of Professor Alexander Tzankov. The anarchists spread their ideas for unity in the struggle against the appearing fascism everywhere. According to them, the revolution was on its way and the people should be ready to meet it. In that reality, all socialists and union people, all together, should organize a front against fascism.

Anyhow, the anarchism in Yambol continued to develop and to find its followers among the pupils from the school of pedagogy. Newspaper “Trakietz” even alarmed the society that the older pupils from the school of pedagogy were “infected, poisoned with that disease. They think they serve an idea like the one of the Old Bulgarian outlaws.”

Due to these and other reasons Yambol remained the center of anarchism. What is more, at the beginning of nineteen twenty-three, a congress of the anarchists in Bulgaria was held in the town. One hundred and four delegates, as well as three hundred and fifty guests from eighty-nine organizations throughout the country took part. The government decided to take advantage of the favorable moment and to deal with the large group of anarchists, who stayed in the town after the congress. That led to the events from the twenty-sixth of March, nineteen twenty-three, when the anarchists organized a meeting against the decision of the government to take away the people’s weapons. The police and the army quickly scattered the assembly, and a gunfight followed. One soldier and one anarchist were shot. The commander of the garrison declared a military situation. The town was desolated. Nobody could go along the streets, and the military police force searched the houses for anarchists. During those events, over two hundred people were arrested. The same night, twenty of the arrested people were shot with no court and sentence. Among them was the fourteen-year-old Spiro Obretenov. Todor Druzev, one of the speakers at the meeting, surrendered, so that he could protect the others. They killed him, too.

But the waywardness continued for some time – until the fifth of April. People were not allowed to move along the streets and to stand at the windows of their houses in some parts of Yambol. Soon, the citizens and the advanced part of the society in Bulgaria started criticizing the acts of the government. A number of protests and demands to stop the prosecutions and killing of the anarchists, and the arrested to be liberated were published in the press.

Thus, after the events on the twenty-sixth of March, nineteen twenty-three, the anarchists went underground and settled in the region of Tvarditza in the Kotel Mountains.

Such is the curious story about the anarchism in Yambol. If you like it, listen to the other stories from the town, as well.