Politics

Early Bulgarian settlement in Canada coincided with struggles in the Balkans. Refugees from Macedonia made up about two-thirds of these settlers. They soon formed political groups to help correct conditions at home. On 10 September 1913 the Macedono-Odrinska Bulgarian People’s Organization was established in Toronto, following a meeting attended by about one thousand Bulgarians in Ontario concerned about the outlawing of Bulgarian language and culture in the territories given to Greece and Serbia at the end of the Balkan War of 1913.

This organization and about ten others in the United States united in the early 1920s into the Union of Macedonian Political Organizations. Officially registered in Indiana in 1925, it changed its name in 1952 to Macedonian Patriotic Organization. The MPO sought the enlightenment and political and social awakening of Macedono-Bulgarian immigrants and Macedonian autonomy. Some groups considered autonomy as a step towards eventual unification with Bulgaria.

The first MPO branch in Canada was Pravda (Justice), at SS Cyril and Methody Church in Toronto. The second, also in Toronto, Pobeda (Victory), resulted from a split in the church community in 1941 and centred around St George Church. In the 1960s this group was renamed Luben Dimitrov, to honour the founding edi-tor-in-chief of the Macedonian Tribune. By the 1970s its young members rejected the goal of an independent Macedonia and proclaimed that the MPO should aim at the reunion of Macedonia and Bulgaria. Those who disagreed reintroduced the name Pobeda for their organization.

In 1927 the Sixth Congress of the MPO argued that there were over one million Bulgarians living in Macedonia and that the preservation of national culture, language, and origin was its primary goal. It sent memoranda to the United Nations in 1946 in defence of the human rights of the Bulgarians in Aegean (Greek) Macedonia; in 1949 it demanded amnesty for all Bulgarians imprisoned in Greece for declaring themselves Bulgarian and assurance of use of Bulgarian for everyday and ceremonial purposes. In 1967 the MPO fought for preservation of the Bulgarian church in Macedonia, which had been seized by Yugoslavia at that time. In 1972 it protested to the United Nations with regard to the imprisonment in Yugoslav Macedonia of students in Skopje and the lawyer Manasiev in Štip, who had declared themselves Bulgarian.

The MPO in Canada has also strengthened its links with Canadian political institutions. In 1956 the first task of the MPO was defined as working among immigrants and their descendants to strengthen their patriotism and loyalty towards their new countries.

In the 1980s, with the change of generations, interest among Bulgarian Canadians in the MPO waned. The second generation had become more involved in Canadian political life, and the problems existing in their parents’ homeland became of secondary importance. Today the MPO works with the church communities and with similar bodies among Slovenes and Croats in Canada.

The Bulgarian National Front (BNF) was founded in Munich, Germany, in 1947 by Bulgarians who were abroad when the Bulgarian Communist government was set up. A subdivision of the BNF was founded in Canada in 1951 and incorporated a few years later. Among its founders in Canada were Ivan Dochev, Pencho Peltekoff, and Angel Todorov. The main goal of the BNF was to oppose the Communist regime in Bulgaria and influence public opinion in the West. It also aimed to help Bulgarians in refugee camps, organize immigrants already settled in Europe and North America, and unify anti-Communist groups.

The BNF in Canada held protests in Toronto in 1971 during the visit of the Soviet Premier A. Kosigin and in Ottawa in 1976 against Communist rule in Bulgaria. Yearly masses in SS Cyril and Methody and St Ivan Rilski churches have honoured the Bulgarians who died resisting the establishment of Communist rule. During the 1970s services of mourning were held each 9 September, the date that marked the Communist takeover in Bulgaria. In addition, lectures were given on the events of that time. The BNF has maintained close contact with descendants of the Bulgarian royal family, who have lived in exile since Bulgaria became a republic. The BNF attracted the attention and support of Canadian officials, especially in Ontario.

Since the fall of the Communist government of Todor Zhivkov in 1989, the BNF has focused its efforts on helping democratic forces in Bulgaria. During the 1990s it has worked with the Bulgarian Democratic Front and has been contributing to democratic processes in the homeland.