Founder of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Party: Who is Dimitar Blagoev?
He was the founder of the Bulgarian left-wing political movement and of the first social-democratic party in the Balkans, the Marxist Bulgarian Social Democratic Party.
(1856-1924) Bulgarian thinker and politician. He is the founder of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Party. He was born on June 14, 1856, in the village of Zagorichane in the Kostour region. He died on 7 May 1924 in Sofia. His father was a dairy farmer in Istanbul and his mother was a farmer in Bulgaria. Dimitar Blagoev, who stayed in his village until the age of 14 and completed his primary education there, later went to Istanbul to live with his father. He continued his secondary education in Bulgarian schools in Istanbul, Edirne, Gabrova, and Stara Zagora. During this period, feudalism was under the influence of national independence ideas.
After Bulgaria gained independence in 1878, he went to Russia. He studied natural sciences and law at the University of Petrograd (present-day Leningrad).
In Russia in the 1880s, Narodnik (populist), utopian socialist, and Lassalist currents were strong among student youth and intellectuals. In this lively discussion, Blogoev founded the first social democratic group in Russia and published the newspaper Rahochu (Worker) in 1885.
Exiled by the tsarist police at the end of the same year, Blogoev returned to Bulgaria, where he worked as a teacher and continued his political studies; He published the journal Suuremennii Pokazatel (Contemporary Indicator).
Blogoev played an active role in the establishment of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Party at a meeting held on August 2, 1891, on Buzluca Mountain with representatives of various socialist groups. In 1897, he began to edit the party's theoretical organ, Novo Vreme (New Time) and held this position for 23 years.
Blogoev was elected as a member of parliament with his 6 social democrat friends in the 1902 elections. He entered the parliament with 13 of his friends in the 1913 elections and 47 in the 1919 elections.
Blogoev argued that against the right-wing within the party, the trade union struggle should not be contented with and the unions should not be non-partisan.
He was also in favor of pursuing an independent policy against the Bulgarian Farmer's Party, which was founded in 1900.
During his lifetime, Blogoev published numerous articles and reviews on history, economics, and social change.