REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

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Remembrance in Time
favorable conditions for the imposition of undemocratic governance and economic
regime. An important element of this regime was the attitude of the authorities to private
property. It was consistently negative, although there is a clearly discernible
differentiation in attitude to the different types of private property. Although the
possession and use of agricultural land was essentially nationalized during the entire
period of existence of Communist Bulgaria, the ruling class did not dare to fully
nationalize it, so that at least nominally private ownership over land was retained.
The almost complete elimination of private property in Bulgaria did not produce a
uniform response in the community. While the nationalisation of the possession and use
of agricultural land (also known as "collectivization of land") brought to defiance and to
the appearance of the so called Goryani movement, carried out a few days after the
adoption of new constitution, the nationalization of industry passed without resistance
under the rather indifferent eyes of the majority of the population. This fact is one of
many that show that the then Bulgarian society was not consolidated in their attitude to
private property.
I tend to think that the lack of such a consolidation was due also to the very
controversial practice in respect of the implementation of the private property provisions,
set out in the Tarnovo Constitution.
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The legal status of private property in the Principality of Bulgaria is regulated in Part III
of Chapter XII of the Tarnovo Constitution. According to Art. 67 rights of ownership are
inviolable and according to Art. 68 involuntary transfer of property can only be done for
state and public benefit, and against fair payment in advance. The method for similar
expropriation of property was intended to be settled in a special law.
For the aforementioned 68 years existence of the Tarnovo Constitution several such
laws have been adopted. Their legal qualities are different, as is to a large extent the
attitude to private ownership vested in them. Undoubtedly the most unscrupulously
unconstitutional law among them is the law on the expropriation of buildings for the
needs of the state and the municipalities of 1920. Its purpose was to alleviate the
budgetary burden on the state and municipalities, by discontinuing the rent payments for
private buildings and the latter were nationalized. The compensation for owners was not
fair because it was limited to the tax valuation of the property at 1919-1920. The
compensation was not paid in advance because it was effected through government
bonds, i.e. by securities that would bring real income in the future. The law was then
assessed by the then legal circles as confiscatory. After the removal of the Agrarian
Government from power in 1924 the law was officially declared by the National
Assembly unconstitutional and was repealed.
Altogether the Bulgarian Argarian People’s Union was one of the then political parties
in Bulgaria, which looked down on the basic law, and their attitude to private property
was very specific. They declared that they were in favor of small private property, while
they intended to liquidate the big private property. Moreover – again in violation of the
Constitution. Payment of land expropriated under the Law on the labour land ownership,
by virtue of which they wanted to redistribute land ownership in accordance with the
Party's program was far from fair, because it was far below the land’s actual value.
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