Ratniks for the Advancement of the Bulgarian National Spirit or "Ратник" was a Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

n Nationalist organization founded in 1936. Its ideas were close to the German National Socialism, including far-right Nationalism, Antisemitism, but also loyalty to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church

Bulgarian Orthodox Church

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church - Bulgarian Patriarchate is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church with some 6.5 million members in the Republic of Bulgaria and between 1.5 and 2.0 million members in a number of European countries, the Americas and Australia...

. Ratnik was a quasi-military youth organisation. The members were called Ratniks (ratnitsi). They had uniforms (purposely red to compete with the communists for the hearts and minds of the Bulgarian youth and social ideas as well) and also specific badges (with the logo of Ratnik, the Bogar

Sun cross

The sun cross, also known as the wheel cross, Odin's cross, or Woden's cross, a cross inside a circle, is a common symbol in artifacts of the Americas and Prehistoric Europe, particularly during the Neolithic to Bronze Age periods.-Stone Age:...

).

Famous members of Ratnik were Emanuil Popdimitrov, a Bulgarian writer and nationalist from the Western Outlands, Dimitar Talev

Dimitar Talev

Dimitar Talev was a Bulgarian writer and journalist.-Biography:Born in Prilep - Ottoman Empire, present day Republic of Macedonia, he graduated high school in Bitola. Talev studied medicine and philosophy in Zagreb and Vienna, and Slavic philology in Sofia University...

, a Bulgarian writer and nationalist from Macedonia

Macedonia (region)

Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...

, Fani Popova-Mutafova, a famous Bulgarian writer, and the professor and translator of German National Socialist works Ljubomir Vladikin. One of the prime ministers of Bulgaria, Petur Gabrovski

Petur Gabrovski

Petur Dimitrov Gabrovski was a Bulgarian politician who briefly served as Prime Minister during the Second World War.Gabrovski began his political career as a National Socialist, forming his own movement the Ratniks of the Advancement of the Bulgarian National Spirit -Ratnik or the Ratnitsi, as...

, was the founder of Ratnik along with four other Bulgarian Nationalists. Another very famous Ratnik was Alexander Belev

Alexander Belev

Alexander Belev was the Bulgarian commisar of Jewish Affairs during World War II, famous with his antisemitic and strong nationalist views. He is also one of the founders of the Bulgarian Nationalistic Organization Ratnik....

, Bulgarian Commissar for Jewish Affairs.

The extremely nationalistic Ratnik was banned even before 1944 by the government, although the ratniks claimed to be loyal to the Monarchy and King Boris III of Bulgaria

Boris III of Bulgaria

Boris III the Unifier, Tsar of Bulgaria , originally Boris Klemens Robert Maria Pius Ludwig Stanislaus Xaver , son of Ferdinand I, came to the throne in 1918 upon the abdication of his father, following the defeat of the Kingdom of Bulgaria during World War I...

. The most famous activism done by Ratnik was the so-called "Bulgarian Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...

". It happened on September 20, 1939. The ratniks were marching in Sofia

Sofia

Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...

 and throwing stones at the Jewish shops. The police did nothing to stop them, so many Jewish stores were damaged and property destroyed.

With the coming of the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 and the Bolshevik

Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

s into Bulgaria on September 9, 1944, Ratnik disappeared from the Bulgarian scene. Many of the leaders became members of the Bulgarian national government abroad, some of the young ratniks become volunteers in the Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

, while others chose to stay in Bulgaria and fight against the Communists.