End of the old and birth of the new Bulgarian Slavophilism at the beginning of the World War ІІ

Abstract

By the beginning of World War II the organized Slavophile movement was represented mainly by the Slavic Charity Society in Bulgaria, chaired by prof. Stefan Bobchev. After his death in 1940 and the changes in Europe, the new Society leadership supportеd Bulgaria’s accession to the Tripartite Pact and pro-German government policy. At the same time in the Soviet Union, Stalin rehabilitated the old Russian Pan-Slavism and launched its organized and purposeful promotion, especially after the German attack on June 22, 1941, but disguised as “a new Slavic movement in the struggle against fascism”. Bulgarian communist political émigrés in the USSR, headed by Georgi Dimitrov, adopted uncritically the revived by Stalin new Slavophilism and became its first adepts. They included it in their ideological arsenal and popularized it actively throughout the war, and after their return transferred  on Bulgarian soil