Vasil Glavinov
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Vasil Kostov Glavinov ( Bulgarian and ; 1868 or 1869 – 1929) was a
Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...
n left-wing politician from Ottoman Macedonia, and an activist of the Bulgarian
workers' movement The labour movement is the collective organisation of Working class, working people to further their shared political and economic interests. It consists of the trade union or labour union movement, as well as political parties of labour. It ca ...
.


Life

Glavinov studied in his native school in Veles ran by Yordan Hadzhikonstantinov-Dzhinot. Then he worked here, before moving to Sofia in 1887. There, he found employment in a brickworks, but later he went bankrupt, owing to the financial support which he gave to the first Bulgarian theatre troupe. In July 1891 on the initiative of Dimitar Blagoev, several social democratic circles united to form the
Bulgarian Social democratic Party The Bulgarian Social Democratic Party (, ''Balgarska Sotsialdemokraticheska Partiya'', BSDP) is a social-democratic political party in Bulgaria. History The party was launched on 26 November 1989 under the name Bulgarian Social Democratic Work ...
. In 1892, Glavinov became acquainted with Dimitar Blagoev's exposition of the Marxist view of history and in 1894 he entered the new Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers Party. In the same year, under Vasil Glavinov's leadership and in order of Blagoev, the first Social-Democratic group in Ottoman Macedonia was formed in Veles. In 1896, Glavinov founded a Macedonian-Adrianople Social Democratic Group, as part of the Bulgarian Workers' Social-Democrat Party. The last idea was probably influenced by the League for the Balkan Confederation, created in 1894 by Balkan socialists, which supported Macedonian autonomy inside a general federation of Southeast Europe. In Sofia Glavinov edited several Socialist papers. He met there one of the leaders of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMARO) Gotse Delchev and both became a friends. Glavinov and Delchev were feeling the lack of funds, and both decided to steal a money from Bulgarian Posts. Their friend Zlatarev took 28,000 leva from the post-office in Kyustendil and fled over the border into Ottoman Macedonia. He had passed on 25,000 leva to Glavinov and his relative Kiprov, to give it to Delchev. The IMARO didn't receive the money. Glavinov maintained that both had buried the leva near a river which had subsequently flooded the area and carried it away. The first Conference of Macedonian Socialists was held on June 3, 1900, near Krushevo, where the activities of Vasil Glavinov's political group defined the basic aspects of the creation of Macedonian republic as a part of Balkan Socialist Federation. This "federative Macedonian republic," (some kind of Switzerland on the Balkans), would be with a
cantonal The 26 cantons of Switzerland are the Federated state, member states of the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. The nucleus of the Swiss Confederacy in the form of the first three confederate allies used to be referred to as the . Two important ...
organization, with separate territorial units for all the "national elements" living there. During the beginning of the 20th century Glavinov was politically active in Sofia. He was arrested as one of the main organizers of the 1st May Day demonstrations in Sofia in 1902. In 1904-1905 he became more active as leader of the Macedonian-Adrianople Socialist Group. After the
Young Turk Revolution The Young Turk Revolution (July 1908; ) was a constitutionalist revolution in the Ottoman Empire. Revolutionaries belonging to the Internal Committee of Union and Progress, an organization of the Young Turks movement, forced Sultan Abdul Hamid II ...
in 1908, he moved back to the Ottoman Empire and initially gravitated around the People's Federative Party (Bulgarian Section). The newspaper "Rabotnicheska Iskra" (Worker's Spark), edited by him, described the two rivaling Bulgarian parties in the Ottoman Empire at the time: the PFP (Bulgarian Section) and the Union of the Bulgarian Constitutional Clubs. According to the newspaper, both of the parties, the former a defender of the poorer Bourgeois, the latter - of the richer, were nationalist and were led by desires of unification with
Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...
. Because of that, Glavinov was disappointed and entered the Ottoman Socialist Party in Salonica in 1910. It was actually not a real political party, but rather a group of intellectuals. In the same year he participated also in the First Balkan Socialist Conference held in
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, which important aspect was the call for a solution to the Macedonian Question. After the
Young Turks The Young Turks (, also ''Genç Türkler'') formed as a constitutionalist broad opposition-movement in the late Ottoman Empire against the absolutist régime of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (). The most powerful organization of the movement, ...
had taken stringent measures against it, difficult times began for the Ottoman Socialist Party. As a consequence, on the eve of the
Balkan Wars The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkans, Balkan states in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan states of Kingdom of Greece (Glücksburg), Greece, Kingdom of Serbia, Serbia, Kingdom of Montenegro, M ...
in 1911 Glavinov moved back to Sofia, where he joined the Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers' Party (Narrow Socialists). During the
Balkan wars The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkans, Balkan states in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan states of Kingdom of Greece (Glücksburg), Greece, Kingdom of Serbia, Serbia, Kingdom of Montenegro, M ...
and
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, he was a member of the leadership of the Narrow Socialists' Organization in Sofia and of the leadership of its trade union organization.Коминтернът и България (март 1919 – септември 1944), том ІІ Документи, Главно управление на архивите при Министерския съвет, Архивите говорят №37, София, 2005, стр. 1157. Here he opposed the Balkan Wars and World War I and was sympathetic to the
October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...
in Russia. In 1919 his Narrow Socialists joined the
Comintern The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internatio ...
and were reorganised as the
Bulgarian Communist Party The Bulgarian Communist Party ( Bulgarian: Българска комунистическа партия (БΚП), Romanised: ''Bŭlgarska komunisticheska partiya''; BKP) was the founding and ruling party of the People's Republic of Bulgaria f ...
. In 1920 Glavinov was elected as a member of the Central Emigrant's Commission to the Central Committee of the Party. He was arrested several times after the 1923 Bulgarian coup d'état. After the
St Nedelya Church assault The St Nedelya Church assault was a terrorist attack on St Nedelya Church in Sofia, Bulgaria. It was carried out on 16 April 1925, when a group of the Military Organisation of the Bulgarian Communist Party directed and supplied by the Soviet M ...
on 16 April 1925 he was arrested again and afterwards Glavinov withdrew from active political life. He died in Sofia in 1929.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Glavinov, Vasil 1860s births 1929 deaths People from Veles, North Macedonia Bulgarian communists Bulgarian Workers' Social Democratic Party politicians