Bulgarian resistance movement during World War II
part of the anti-Axis resistance during World War II
The Bulgarian Resistance (Bulgarian: Партизанско движение в България, romanized: Partizansko dvizhenie v Balgariya, lit. 'Partisan movement in Bulgaria') was part of the anti-Axis resistance during World War II. It consisted of armed and unarmed actions of resistance groups against the Wehrmacht forces in Bulgaria and the Tsardom of Bulgaria authorities. It was mainly communist and pro-Soviet Union. Participants in the armed resistance were called partizanin (a partisan) and yatak (a helper, or a supporter, someone who provides cover for someone else).
Background
The Communists had long despised the pro-German policy of Prime Minister Bogdan Filov and even campaigned in 1940 for a political pact with Moscow (the Sobolev action).
German forces entered Bulgaria on 1–2 March 1941 as a result of Bulgaria's adhesion to the Axis. The Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) declared this to be a "fatal move" and once again called for a union with the USSR.
On 6 March 1941 Georgi Dimitrov called on the people of Bulgaria to start resistance against the Germans.
Before the German invasion of the USSR, there had not been any armed resistance in Bulgaria. At the start of World War II, the Comintern supported a policy of non-intervention, arguing that the war was an imperialist war between various national ruling classes, but when the Soviet Union itself was invaded on 22 June 1941, the Comintern changed its position. The resistance movement was set up in August 1941 by the Bulgarian Communist Party to oppose the pro-Nazi government.
Beginning
The German attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 sparked the rage of Communists and Russophiles in Bulgaria.
“Bulgarian resistance movement during World War II” enters the record as part of the anti-Axis resistance during World War II. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Bulgarian, resistance and movement can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1273530. The Library of Congress control number is sh2008114003. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1940 and 1941.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bulgarian resistance movement during World War II” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.