Bulgaria Part 8

The Bulgarian railways are, with the quays at the ports, the property of the State, and are managed by a General Board of State Railways and Ports. There are over 3000 railway servants fourteen lines traversing the country east to west and north to south, and some seventy-two railway stations. Both Varna and Bourgas are connected by railway with the main lines. The lines have been constructed very cheaply (about 7500 a mile) considering the nature of the country which they traverse.

They may be said to be profitable to the State since they return about 2-1/2 per cent interest on their cost of construction, despite the fact that they give many concessions to encourage local industries.

The postal, telegraphic, and telephonic facilities in Bulgaria are quite equal to the average of Europe. There are about 200 post offices, about 7000 miles of telegraph wires, and 600 miles of long-distance telephone.

The postal and telegraph administration yields a small surplus to the treasury.

As to the trade of Bulgaria the present is a difficult time to calculate its value, but before the war the imports were of an annual value of about 4,000,000, and the exports of an annual value of about 4,500,000. The chief import trade is from Austria. England, Turkey, and Germany then follow in that order. The chief markets for Bulgarian exports are Turkey, England, Germany, and Austria. The chief financial inst.i.tution of the country is the Bulgarian National Bank, which is a State inst.i.tution, 87 per cent of its profits going to the Bulgarian Government. There are also State savings banks which are much favoured by the thrifty peasantry, there being about 30,000 depositors.

The monetary units which have been adopted by Bulgaria are the _lev_ (having the value of one franc) and the _stotinka_ (centime), being the hundredth part of a _lev_. For some years after the creation of the Princ.i.p.ality, the Government found it impossible to introduce any national coins. It had to permit the circulation of all kinds of foreign money--Servian, Roumanian, Russian, etc. In 1881 the Government put into circulation two million francs of Bulgarian copper money, but these, as well as the twelve millions of silver money which were issued in 1883-1884, proved quite insufficient to drive away the foreign money, so that the latter continued to be used in all commercial transactions. It was not until 1887 that the Government prohibited the circulation of Servian and Roumanian coins. Later Russian money was also prohibited, and there is now a purely national currency. On the outbreak of the war in 1913 a _moratorium_ was declared, and the internal finance of the country was managed on a paper currency. The confidence of the people kept this paper money at its full value. I was never able to get any concession in exchanging English gold for paper.

Bulgaria, notwithstanding all the preoccupations of a young nation, finds time to encourage the arts. As the ill.u.s.trations to this volume will show, there is a flourishing school of native art in Bulgaria. To Nicolas Pavlovitch (born 1835, died 1889) belongs the honour of having been the father of modern Bulgarian art. He graduated at the academies in Vienna and Munich, and, after visiting the various museums in Dresden and Prague, exhibited during 1860 in Belgrade two pictures whose subjects had been suggested by ancient Bulgarian history. He then went to Petrograd and Moscow. In 1861 he returned to his native country, where he endeavoured, by means of his lithographs and pictures of subjects both ancient and modern, to stimulate his compatriots to political and intellectual life. He also tried to reform and modernise church painting in accordance with the requirements of modern artistic technique, and made two unsuccessful attempts at opening a school of painting. He painted portraits, and, in the palace of the Pasha of Roustchouk, he ill.u.s.trated a Turkish history of the Janissaries.

In 1896 a State school of painting was founded at Sofia, and there is now a fine art gallery in the capital. But most of the artistic impulse has come from abroad, and the most notable names in Bulgarian art after that of Pavlovitch are Piotrovsky (Polish), Boloungaro (Italian), de Fourcade (French), Sliapin (Russian). The first art exhibition was organised in 1887 by Ivan Angeloff, teacher in the Gymnasium of Sofia and a graduate of the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. This exhibition, which contained three pictures painted in Bulgaria and a number of sketches and studies dating from the artist's student days in Munich, as well as drawings by students of the Gymnasium, was held in one of the drawing-rooms of the Gymnasium in honour of the Prince, who had recently been elected to the Bulgarian throne. Some five years later, on the occasion of the first Bulgarian Industrial and Agricultural Exhibition, held at Plovdiv in 1892, the first collective art exhibition was organised, the productions of the various Bulgarian artists being exhibited. King Ferdinand is a consistent patron of Bulgarian art, and has the richest collection of pictures in Bulgaria, distributed among his palaces at Sofia, Plovdiv, and Varna.

M. Audrey Prot.i.tch, in a recent monograph on Bulgarian art (to which I am indebted for most of the facts above) gives this critical summary of Bulgarian achievement:

If we exclude historical painting, which, since the early and specialised attempts of Nicolas Pavlovitch, has been almost entirely neglected in Bulgaria, Bulgarian artists have tried their hand at almost every form of art. Ethnographical pictures, national scenes, pictures of military subjects, landscapes, interiors, flower pieces, animals, portraits, icons, allegories, mythical subjects, ruins, architecture--all these are fully represented in the art gallery of the National Museum, and have figured in nearly all the art exhibitions. The first place among these varieties is held by landscapes, _genre_, and portraits, whether in oil, water-colour, or pastel. The weak point of Bulgarian artists is undoubtedly undraped figures, especially undraped feminine figures, the only exception being Stephan Ivanoff, who however abandoned this cla.s.s of work to become the best icon-painter in Bulgaria.

Bulgarian art may be called national only as regards its contents, but neither in form nor technique. As we have already said, the subjects are taken from Bulgarian scenery or from peasant and town life. The sense of human form is gradually developing, with the exception of the feminine body, which remains proscribed by public taste. This last circ.u.mstance accounts, to a great extent, for the low level of sculpture in Bulgaria. Decorative art is making rapid strides, owing to the great amount of building going on during recent years. Artistic form and technique are in a transitional phase, all the younger artists waging war against the traditional and conventional styles and the foreign influences that have hitherto hindered the free development of art in Bulgaria, and striving to evolve forms more in conformity with the contents of Bulgarian art.

About Bulgarian literature I can say nothing--lacking a guidance of a competent critic or a knowledge of the language--except that it is ambitious and aspiring. But it can hardly be expected that a language which is, after all, but a dialect of Russian should ever produce a great literature. The Bulgarian national pride is so strong that probably there will never be a movement to make Russian the literary language of the people; but in that would seem to be the best hope of a Bulgarian literature.

CHAPTER XI

HOW BULGARIA IS GOVERNED

To attempt to describe how Bulgaria is governed is to enter inevitably into the realms of controversy. In theory the system of government is purely democratic: and many Bulgarians are confident that the practice follows the theory closely. Personally I have my doubts. The working of a fully democratic const.i.tution seems to be tempered a great deal by the aristocratic powers reserved to the King in Council at times of crisis: and this tempering is probably necessary.

The ancient Bulgarian system of government was without a doubt the despotic tribal system of nomads. Under Turkish rule, the territory of Bulgaria was administered as the Vilayet of the Danube under a Turkish Pasha; and not always badly administered as is proved by the fact that Bulgarian industry and thrift was allowed to raise the province into the most flourishing one of Turkey-in-Europe. But until the Treaty of Paris in 1856, Turkey had no real political organisation. Being a theocratic state, all her public inst.i.tutions emanated from the Kaliph, as the representative of Mohammed. The Koran took the place of civil and criminal law, and the duty of its ministers was to punish all those who broke its commandments. Every parish had a "cadi," who was appointed by the spiritual chief. The cadi concentrated in his hands all jurisdictions, judging without appeal cases, civil and criminal, and observing no fixed rules of procedure in the application of the few principles which the Koran contained on the subject of civil relations. In certain special cases, the Sheik-ul-Islam of Constantinople, the highest religious tribunal in Turkey, had the right to revise the decisions of the cadis. At the Congress of Paris, Turkey, as one of the partic.i.p.ating parties, was admitted into the concert of European Powers. Then civil tribunals were for the first time created in Turkey. In 1867 they were introduced in the Vilayet of the Danube by the then Governor-General, Midhat Pasha. In 1877 the Russians liberated Bulgaria from the Turks. After the Treaty of Berlin Prince Dondoukoff-Korsakoff framed a provisional system of government for Bulgaria. Then a Russian law professor, Gradovsky, with the help of General Domontovity, framed a const.i.tution for Bulgaria.

This was based upon the commune being, as in Russia, the organic unit of administrative control, and was aristocratic rather than democratic in its general character, though it provided for a far more liberal system of government than that existing in Russia herself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A GRAVE QUESTION]

The draft Const.i.tution was submitted to a Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly elected by the Bulgarian people at Tirnova in February 1879. The a.s.sembly elected a Committee of fifteen members to consider the draft. This Committee revised the draft, making it less democratic than before. The a.s.sembly rejected their revision and set to work to recast the Const.i.tution, making it far more liberal, and including a provision for universal suffrage. The Const.i.tution thus revised was affirmed and has been in force since, with occasional suspensions when the Prince for a time took autocratic power. Since 1883 the Const.i.tution has not been suspended.

The main principles of the Bulgarian Const.i.tution are:

(1) Separation of public authorities into legislative, executive and judiciary.

(2) Equality of citizens, as regards civil and political rights.

(3) Inviolability of the person, residence, property, and correspondence.

(4) Liberty of conscience, liberty of the press, liberty of public meetings, and liberty to form a.s.sociations.

(5) Direct and secret universal suffrage for the election of members of the National a.s.sembly, and departmental and munic.i.p.al councils.

(6) Local self-government.

The authorities under the const.i.tution are:

1. The king, who is head of the army and navy, has the supreme executive power and can appoint and dismiss ministers, can prorogue Parliament but not for longer than two months, and can dissolve Parliament. The King may issue regulations and order measures, having the obligatory force of laws, whenever the State is threatened with immediate internal or external danger. All such measures, however, must be adopted by the Cabinet Council, and entail the collective responsibility of all the ministers. They must be submitted to the approval of the National a.s.sembly in the course of its earliest session. A special section of the Const.i.tution expressly forbids the levying, by means of such extraordinary regulations, of new taxes or duties, the National a.s.sembly having alone the right to impose them.

2. The National a.s.sembly, elected by manhood suffrage through a secret ballot. Every deputy has the right to make propositions and to introduce bills, if he is supported by one-fourth of the members present. The National a.s.sembly may amend the bills and propositions introduced by the Government. The deputies have the right to make interpellations. By means of this, the deputies can force individual ministers or the entire Government to explain their line of conduct and to state their intentions on some special matter, or as regards their general policy.

The National a.s.sembly may appoint commissions of inquiry or inst.i.tute inquiries as regards the conduct of the Government. It may submit to the Crown special addresses.

There is no Upper House, but for special occasions a "Grand National a.s.sembly" is convoked. This has the same composition as the ordinary National a.s.sembly, and its members are elected in the same way. The only difference between the two is that the number of members of a Grand National a.s.sembly is twice that of the ordinary National a.s.sembly, every electoral unit of 20,000 inhabitants sending two deputies instead of one. The Grand National a.s.sembly may decide only those matters which have necessitated its convocation. A Grand National a.s.sembly is called in the following cases:

1. To decide questions of exchanging or ceding a portion of the territory of Bulgaria.

2. To revise the Const.i.tution.

3. To elect a new Prince when the reigning family becomes extinct, owing to absence of descendants who can occupy the throne.

4. To appoint regents during the minority of the heir to the throne.

5. To authorise the Prince to accept the government of another State.

Every Order must bear, in addition to the signature of the Prince, that of one minister or of all the ministers, these latter being the responsible representatives of the executive authority. The ministers are held responsible to the Prince and to the National a.s.sembly for all their acts. This responsibility is collective for all the ministers in the case of measures which have been decided by the Council of Ministers, and individual with respect to the acts of the ministers as heads of the various State Departments.

What I have described represents in effect a complete system of representative and responsible government. But observation of Bulgarian politics during and since the war has suggested to me that the King and his ministers really can exercise a practical oligarchy: and it is probably necessary that they should.

In the Bulgarian National a.s.sembly there is a very strong Socialist party, and the Parliamentary life of the Kingdom is stormy.

CHAPTER XII

THE FUTURE OF BULGARIA

It is impossible, in my opinion, to doubt the future of Bulgaria. The disasters of 1914 would seem to suggest that the Bulgarian nation was without the moral balance to withstand the intoxication of victory. But whilst the events of that unhappy year showed the lack of that balance, the fault was with the leaders of the people rather than with the people themselves.

The misfortune of Bulgaria in this generation of the nation's life--a misfortune which is being rapidly repaired--is that she has no middle cla.s.s: and no cla.s.s with any "tradition" of leadership behind it. There are the peasants--admirable material for nation-making--heroic, thrifty, moral, industrious, practical. Above the peasants there is no cla.s.s from which to draw a good supply of competent administrators, law-makers, officers, professional men. The peasant has his own limited capacities for leadership; but they are limited. I have encountered him frequently as Mayor of some little commune, as captain of an infantry regiment, and admired his administrative abilities, within a narrow and familiar scope, exceedingly. But the peasant does not go higher than that. It is the son of the peasant with some extra gift of cleverness who is "given an education," who becomes legislator, official, cleric, diplomat. In many cases he does not take his polish well. Advanced education for the ambitious Balkan lad has in the past generally meant education abroad; and in Paris or Vienna or Petrograd the young Bulgarian, plunged into an altogether new life of luxury and of frivolity, often suffered a loss of natural strength of fibre for which no book-learning could compensate.

That evil will pa.s.s away. It is now possible to get a fairly advanced liberal education without going beyond Bulgaria. Also the people are becoming more immune to the effects of Western civilisation. Measles is a dangerous, indeed generally fatal, disease in countries to which it is first introduced. But in time immunity comes to make it almost harmless. Bulgaria's material for a modern national organisation is being quickly improved by the upgrowth of a middle cla.s.s whose sons will be able to keep their Bulgarian qualities even under the circ.u.mstances of life in Paris or other great modern city. In future, then, the courage of the people is likely to have a wiser, more reasonable leadership, and, with that, it will do wonders.

But I do not wish to be misunderstood as representing that to-day the official cla.s.ses and the leaders of the Bulgarian nation are generally unworthy or incompetent. That would be very far from the truth. But it is the truth that as yet Bulgaria has not a cla.s.s sufficient in numbers and strong enough in tradition to supply her needs in leadership. How could it be otherwise, seeing that the nation is not much more than a generation old, and has had to begin working up its organisation from bed-rock?

The events of 1913-1914 have left Bulgaria weak in her greatest element of national strength--in the numbers of her citizens. The wars with the Turks and the subsequent war with the other Balkan states, the ravages of cholera and, one may unhappily conclude too, the ravages of hunger after the dreadful ordeals of the successive campaigns, have taken heavy toll of Bulgarian manhood. But the country will "stock up" quickly. Its birth-rate is the highest in the world; and its "effective" birth-rate, _i.e._ the proportion of survivals of those born, is also the highest.

If only a period of peace can be secured, all will be well in time.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A YOUNG MAN OF THE CHOUMLA DISTRICT]