Vasil Konstantinov Tanev (; 9 October 1897 – 21 November 1941) was a Bulgarian

Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

, one of the three Bulgarian

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 ...

operatives arrested and tried for complicity in the

Reichstag fire The Reichstag fire (, ) was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday, 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. Marinus van der Lubbe, ...

in 1933.

Biography

Tanev was born in

Gevgelija Gevgelija (; ) is a town with a population of 15,685 located in the very southeast of North Macedonia along the banks of the Vardar River, situated at the country's main border with Greece (Bogorodica-Evzoni), the point which links the motorway f ...

, in the

Salonica Vilayet The Vilayet of Salonica () was a first-level administrative division (vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire from 1867 to 1913. In the late 19th century it reportedly had an area of .

of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

(present-day

North Macedonia North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the n ...

) and joined 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 1919. After the failure of the

September Uprising The September Uprising (, ''Septemvriysko vastanie''), also called the September Riots (Септемврийски бунтове),Голяма енциклопедия България, том 10, Главен редактор акад. Вас ...

of 1923 he fled to the

Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast Europe, Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" () h ...

, then moved between Communist Russia and secret missions in Bulgaria. In 1933 Tanev was in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

working for the Comintern under

Georgi Dimitrov Georgi Dimitrov Mihaylov (; ) also known as Georgiy Mihaylovich Dimitrov (; 18 June 1882 – 2 July 1949), was a Bulgarian communist politician who served as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party from 1933 t ...

. On 9 March 1933 Tanev, Dimitrov and Blagoy Popov, along with others were arrested and charged with complicity in the

. All three were acquitted. Tanev was acclaimed as a hero on his return to Russia, but was forced into self-denunciation later in the 1930s. The Bulgarian Communist Party ordered him to carry out a mission in Bulgaria in 1941. He was killed later in that year near Langadas.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tanev, Vasil 1897 births 1941 deaths People from Gevgelija People from Salonica vilayet Macedonian Bulgarians Bulgarian communists Bulgarian resistance members Bulgarian people imprisoned abroad International Lenin School alumni