Турция във външната политика на Александър Стамболийски 1920–1923 г.
Turkey in the Foreign Policy of Alexander Stambolijski (1920–1923)

Summary/Abstract: Various aspects of academic research into the matter of Turkey’s place in the foreign policy of Alexander Stambolijski have repeatedly been discussed in modern Bulgarian historiography. The majority of existing publications, however, are characterised by a measure of scientific romanticism, which cannot be supported with archival documents. Until now, studies principally concentrate on the relations between the Bulgarian Prime Minister Alexander Stambolijski and the leader of the Turkish nationalists Mustafa Kemal, disregarding the contacts of the Bulgarian government and that of the Turkish sultan and its relations with the control commissions formed by representatives of the states that won World War I and stationed on the territory of Turkey and Bulgaria. The main foreign political line of the Bulgarian government as regards Turkey in the 1920 –1923 period aimed to defend the rights of the Bulgarian refugees from Eastern and Western Thrace and the rights of Bulgarian institutions in Turkey in parallel with developing diplomatic initiatives for a territorial revision of the Treaty of Neuilly in the direction of Eastern and Western Thrace. In view of the stronger positions of Greece and the intentions of the Entente states for post-war organization of the Balkans. Stambolijski saw a natural ally in the face of the Kemalists, but without allowing for the possibility of giving up claims on the controversial problems in Bulgarian-Turkish relations related to the right of the refugees and the Tracian territorial issue. Since Mustafa Kemal’s intentions regarding the organization of Thrace and the rights of Bulgarian refugees proved opposite to Bulgarian interest, the Bulgarian Prime Minister failed to achieve agreement for cooperation with the Turkish nationalists. Thus he turned to initiatives for ensuring Bulgarian interests by means of achieving concessions on the part of the government in Istanbul, in accordance and with the support of the West European countries.

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