Bulgarian Agrarian National Union
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Bulgarian Agrarian People's Union
Български земеделски народен съюз |
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| Leader | Nikolay Nenchev |
| Founded | 1899 |
| Headquarters | Sofia |
| Ideology | Agrarianism |
| Political position | Centre |
| National affiliation | Reformist Bloc |
| European affiliation | None |
| International affiliation | None |
| Colours | Orange |
| National Assembly |
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| European Parliament |
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| Website | |
| http://www.bzns.bg/ | |
Bulgarian Agrarian National Union also translated to English as Bulgarian Agrarian People's Union (Bulgarian: Български земеделски народен съюз, Bǎlgarski Zemedelski Naroden Sǎjuz; BZNS) is a political party devoted to representing the causes of the Bulgarian peasantry. It was most powerful between 1900 and 1923. In practice, it was an agrarian movement. Unlike the socialist movements of the early 20th century, it was devoted to questions concerning agriculture and farm workers, rather than industry and factory workers. The BZNS, one of the first and most powerful of the agrarian parties in Eastern Europe, dominated Bulgarian politics during the beginning of the 20th century. It is also the only agrarian party in Europe that ever came to power with a majority government, rather than merely as part of a coalition. It is a founding member of the former International Agrarian Bureau.
An Agrarian Union was first organized in Bulgaria in 1899 — it was to be a professional organization open only to peasants, and was at first not meant to become a political party. The Union initially won widespread peasant support by mobilizing peasants throughout Bulgaria to peaceful demonstrations against the government’s unfair taxation policies. Throughout this process the Union remained politically unaligned. However, at its third congress, motivated by upcoming elections for the Bulgarian National Assembly, the Union leaders—not peasants themselves but a group of teachers—voted to become a political party. Thus, in 1901, the Agrarian Union became the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union — Bulgaria’s official peasant party. BZNS candidates subsequently ran for positions in local and national elections.
Over the next twenty years, the BZNS remained a part of Bulgarian politics, but it began to falter for lack of a concrete ideological base. Aleksandar Stamboliyski saved the party from that plight by first publishing a series of theoretical articles on the peasants’ role in the state and history, and finally taking control of the BZNS party. In 1909 he wrote the book Political Parties or Estatist Organizations, which laid the foundations for the ideology of the BZNS. Stamboliyski rose through the ranks of the BZNS and by 1918 had become the leader of the party. World War I left Bulgaria in a state of severe social and economic crisis, and after a series of worker and peasant strikes and uprisings between 1918 and 1920, the Bulgarian army and all old political parties were essentially discredited. In 1920, by a combination of major popular support and some coercive methods, Stamboliyski was able to create a BZNS controlled government. The party also formed a militia, the Orange Guard.
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