Tsola Dragoycheva
Encyclopedia
Tsola Nincheva Dragoycheva , also known under the pseudonym Sonya, was a Bulgaria
n politician of the Bulgarian Communist Party
(BCP). A member of the illegal armed wing of the party in the 1920s, she spent years in prison and as an émigré
in the Soviet Union
. After World War II
, she held a number of high posts and was part of the nomenklatura
. From 1946 until 1990, she was continuously a member of the National Assembly of Bulgaria
. On 11 December 1947 she became the first female member of a cabinet in the history of the country.
Dragoycheva was born on in the town of Byala Slatina
in Vratsa Province
, northwestern Bulgaria. In 1919, she joined the communist party. She graduated from the high pedagogical school in Sofia
and became a teacher. She took part in the communist September Uprising
of 1923 and was sentenced to 15 years in prison and was deprived of her teaching rights. She was amnestied
in 1924 and quickly became a member of the regional directorates of her party's armed wing in Rousse
, Varna
and Plovdiv
. In the wake of the St Nedelya Church assault
in 1925, Dragoycheva was again imprisoned and sentenced to death
; the execution was postponed due to her pregnancy and her capital punishment was replaced with a life sentence in 1926. In 1932, she was again amnestied; her son, surgeon Chavdar Dragoychev, was born in prison.
In 1932, she emigrated to Moscow
; there she graduated from the International Lenin School
and worked at the Comintern
's International Women's Secretariat for a year. Dragoycheva returned to Bulgaria in 1936 and was elected a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party's Central Committee
, which she remained until 2 February 1990. From 1941 on, she was a member of the BCP's Politburo
.
Dragoycheva took an active part in the BCP and the Fatherland Front
's armed resistance to Bulgaria's alignment with the Axis Powers
of World War II
. She was arrested in August 1941 and interned at the Sveti Nikola women's wing of the Gonda Voda concentration camp near Asenovgrad
; she remained there until December.
After the coup d'état of 1944
and her party's rise to power, Dragoycheva took a number of posts, including General Secretary of the Fatherland Front (1944–1948), chairwoman of the Bulgarian People's Women's Union (1945–1950), Minister of Posts, Telegraphs and Telephones (1947–1957), chairwoman of the National Committee for the Protection of Peace (1949–1952), chairwoman of the All-People's Committee for Bulgarian-Soviet Friendship (1957–1977) and its honorary chairwoman from 1977 on.
Dragoycheva was a supporter of the killing of Nikola Petkov
, Traycho Kostov and other "enemies of the people
". She advocated Bulgaria's admission to the Soviet Union as its 16th republic and acted as a censor
of culture and arts. A close friend of Joseph Kobzon
and Andrei Tupolev
, she was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize
in 1971.
Her memoirs give a detailed overview of the Bulgarians in Vardar Macedonia
's state in and after World War II and express the BCP's views on the Macedonian Question. However, they were heavily criticized by Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) leader Ivan Mihaylov. Dragoycheva died in Sofia on 26 May 1993, living to the age of 94.
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 politician of the Bulgarian Communist Party
Bulgarian Communist Party
The Bulgarian Communist Party was the communist and Marxist-Leninist ruling party of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from 1946 until 1990 when the country ceased to be a communist state...
(BCP). A member of the illegal armed wing of the party in the 1920s, she spent years in prison and as an émigré
Émigré
Émigré is a French term that literally refers to a person who has "migrated out", but often carries a connotation of politico-social self-exile....
in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, she held a number of high posts and was part of the nomenklatura
Nomenklatura
The nomenklatura were a category of people within the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in all spheres of those countries' activity: government, industry, agriculture, education, etc., whose positions were granted only with approval by the...
. From 1946 until 1990, she was continuously a member of the National Assembly of Bulgaria
National Assembly of Bulgaria
The National Assembly of Bulgaria is the unicameral parliament and body of the legislative of the Republic of Bulgaria.The National Assembly of Bulgaria was established in 1879 with the Constitution of Bulgaria.-Ordinary National Assembly:...
. On 11 December 1947 she became the first female member of a cabinet in the history of the country.
Dragoycheva was born on in the town of Byala Slatina
Byala Slatina
Byala Slatina is a town in Northwestern Bulgaria. It is located in Vratsa Province. As of December 2009, the town has a population of 12,433 inhabitants.-External links:*...
in Vratsa Province
Vratsa Province
Vratsa Province , former name Vratsa okrug) is a Bulgarian province located in the northwestern part of the country, between Danube river in the north and Stara Planina mountain in the south. It is named after its main town - Vratsa...
, northwestern Bulgaria. In 1919, she joined the communist party. She graduated from the high pedagogical school 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 became a teacher. She took part in the communist September Uprising
September Uprising
The September Uprising was an armed insurgency staged in September 1923 by the Bulgarian Communist Party under Comintern pressure, as an attempt to overthrow the Democratic Accord government of Bulgaria that had come to power with the coup d'état of June 9. Besides its communist base, the...
of 1923 and was sentenced to 15 years in prison and was deprived of her teaching rights. She was amnestied
Amnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...
in 1924 and quickly became a member of the regional directorates of her party's armed wing in Rousse
Rousse
Ruse is the fifth-largest city in Bulgaria. Ruse is situated in the northeastern part of the country, on the right bank of the Danube, opposite the Romanian city of Giurgiu, from the capital Sofia and from the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast...
, Varna
Varna
Varna is the largest city and seaside resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and third-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia and Plovdiv, with a population of 334,870 inhabitants according to Census 2011...
and Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...
. In the wake of the St Nedelya Church assault
St Nedelya Church assault
The St Nedelya Church assault was an attack upon St. Nedelya Church in Bulgaria. It was carried out on 16 April 1925, when a group of the Bulgarian Communist Party blew up the roof of the St Nedelya Church in the capital Sofia. This occurred during the funeral service of General Konstantin...
in 1925, Dragoycheva was again imprisoned and sentenced to death
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
; the execution was postponed due to her pregnancy and her capital punishment was replaced with a life sentence in 1926. In 1932, she was again amnestied; her son, surgeon Chavdar Dragoychev, was born in prison.
In 1932, she emigrated to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
; there she graduated from the International Lenin School
International Lenin School
Situated in Moscow and shrouded in secrecy, the International Lenin School was founded in 1926 as an instrument for the "Bolshevisation" of the Communist International and its national sections, following the resolutions of the fifth Congress of the Comintern. Between 1926 and 1938 the school...
and worked at the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
's International Women's Secretariat for a year. Dragoycheva returned to Bulgaria in 1936 and was elected a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party's Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
, which she remained until 2 February 1990. From 1941 on, she was a member of the BCP's Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
.
Dragoycheva took an active part in the BCP and the Fatherland Front
Fatherland Front (Bulgaria)
The Fatherland Front was originally a Bulgarian political resistance movement during World War II. The Zveno movement, the communist Bulgarian Workers Party, a wing of the Agrarian Union and the Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers Party, were all part of the FF...
's armed resistance to Bulgaria's alignment with the Axis Powers
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. She was arrested in August 1941 and interned at the Sveti Nikola women's wing of the Gonda Voda concentration camp near Asenovgrad
Asenovgrad
Asenovgrad is a town in central southern Bulgaria, part of Plovdiv Province.-History:Asenovgrad was founded by the Thracians as Stenímachos around 300–400 BC. In 72 BC the city was captured by the troops of the Roman Empire as part of the Roman expansion towards the Black Sea. After a long period...
; she remained there until December.
After the coup d'état of 1944
Bulgarian coup d'état of 1944
The Bulgarian coup d'état of 1944, also known as the 9 September coup d'état and called in pre-1989 Bulgaria the National Uprising of 9 September or the Socialist Revolution of 9 September was a change in the Kingdom of Bulgaria's administration and government carried out on the eve of 9 September...
and her party's rise to power, Dragoycheva took a number of posts, including General Secretary of the Fatherland Front (1944–1948), chairwoman of the Bulgarian People's Women's Union (1945–1950), Minister of Posts, Telegraphs and Telephones (1947–1957), chairwoman of the National Committee for the Protection of Peace (1949–1952), chairwoman of the All-People's Committee for Bulgarian-Soviet Friendship (1957–1977) and its honorary chairwoman from 1977 on.
Dragoycheva was a supporter of the killing of Nikola Petkov
Nikola Petkov
Nikola Dimitrov Petkov was a Bulgarian politician, one of the leaders of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union . He entered politics in the early 1930s. Like many other peasant party leaders in Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria in 1945-1947, Petkov was tried and executed soon after postwar Soviet...
, Traycho Kostov and other "enemies of the people
Enemy of the people
The term enemy of the people is a fluid designation of political or class opponents of the group using the term. The term implies that the "enemies" in question are acting against society as a whole. It is similar to the notion of "enemy of the state". The term originated in Roman times as ,...
". She advocated Bulgaria's admission to the Soviet Union as its 16th republic and acted as a censor
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
of culture and arts. A close friend of Joseph Kobzon
Joseph Kobzon
Iosif Davydovich Kobzon is a Soviet and Russian singer, known for his crooner style.-Early life:Kobzon was born to Jewish parents in the mining town of Chasiv Yar, in the Donbass region of Ukraine....
and Andrei Tupolev
Andrei Tupolev
Andrei Nikolayevich Tupolev was a pioneering Soviet aircraft designer.During his career, he designed and oversaw the design of more than 100 types of aircraft, some of which set 78 world records...
, she was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize
Lenin Peace Prize
The International Lenin Peace Prize was the Soviet Union's equivalent to the Nobel Peace Prize, named in honor of Vladimir Lenin. It was awarded by a panel appointed by the Soviet government, to notable individuals whom the panel indicated had "strengthened peace among peoples"...
in 1971.
Her memoirs give a detailed overview of the Bulgarians in Vardar Macedonia
Vardar Macedonia
Vardar Macedonia is an area in the north of the Macedonia . The borders of the area are those of the Republic of Macedonia. It covers an area of...
's state in and after World War II and express the BCP's views on the Macedonian Question. However, they were heavily criticized by Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) leader Ivan Mihaylov. Dragoycheva died in Sofia on 26 May 1993, living to the age of 94.