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((Refimprove|date=January 2010))
((Infobox military conflict
| conflict          = Goryani movement
| image             = Anticommunist-monument.jpg
| caption           = Monument of the perished anticommunists in Tsalapitsa
| date              = 1944 – 1956
| place             = [[Bulgaria]]
| result            = Goryani defeated by 1956
| combatant1        = ((flagcountry|People's Republic of Bulgaria))
| combatant2        = ''Goryani'' rebels
| commander1        = ((flagdeco|People's Republic of Bulgaria)) [[Kimon Georgiev]]<br>((flagdeco|People's Republic of Bulgaria)) [[Georgi Dimitrov]] <br>((flagdeco|People's Republic of Bulgaria)) [[Vasil Kolarov]] <br>((flagdeco|People's Republic of Bulgaria)) [[Valko Chervenkov]] <br>((flagdeco|People's Republic of Bulgaria)) [[Anton Yugov]] <br>((flagdeco|People's Republic of Bulgaria)) [[Todor Zhivkov]]
| commander2        = No centralized leadership
))
((Eastern Bloc sidebar))
The '''Goryani''' movement (((lang-bg|Горянско движение))) or '''Goryanstvo''' (((lang-bg|горянство)): Goryanism) was an active guerrilla resistance against the Bulgarian communist regime. It began immediately after the [[1944 Bulgarian coup d'état|Ninth of September]] ''[[coup d'état]]'' in 1944 which opened the way to communist rule in Bulgaria, and ended in 1956. The movement covered the entire country, including urban areas and is known to have been the first organised anti-Soviet armed resistance in eastern Europe as well as the longest lasting. 

The members of the movement were dubbed ''Goryani'' (((lang-bg|Горяни)): ones of the forest), most likely not by themselves but pejoratively by the authorities or by street wits. Extremely scant official acknowledgements of the movement termed its members ''diversanti'' (((lang-bg|диверсанти)): subversives, saboteurs and invariably stressed that they had been sent across the border by "imperialist centres".) Though helped to a significant extent by emigre Bulgarians and by foreign powers, the Goryani movement was mostly indigenous and spontaneous. 

Its mode of action was traditionally Bulgarian, as practiced by the anti-Ottoman ''hayduti'' [Bulgarian хайдути: outlaws] and the [[Bulgarian resistance movement during World War II|anti-Nazi Partisans]] (pejoratively called ''Shumkari''; ((lang-bg|Шумкари)), those of the bushes): the Goryani hid in remote mountains, highlands and forests, relying on a large network of ''yatatsi'' (((lang-bg|ятаци)); illicit helpers) in settled communities, conducted sudden armed raids to disturb official business and withdrew before capture. Largely composed of country folk who defended their land and property from the communists, the Goryani had no discernible ideology or platform and were united by their dislike of the communist authorities. 

Very little information has survived on the Goryani, whose existence was steadfastly concealed and denied by the Bulgarian communist authorities, with historical data on them carefully classified and removed and witnesses or participants intimidated into silence or eliminated. Since the movement was practically devoid of any international dimension, its history has remained remote from the mainstream of world anti-communist resistance.

==Origins==
The new communist regime, aided by the [[Red Army]], imposed a policy of class war through several waves of terror: extrajudicial intimidation immediately after the [[Bulgarian coup d'état of 1944|9 September 1944 ''coup'']], People's Court tribunals in the mid-1940s, the elimination of opposition to the [[Bulgarian Communist Party]] in the late Forties<ref>Дертлиев, Петър „Ден първи-ден последен“, София, 1996 [[Petar Dertliev|Dertliev, Petar]], Den Parvi, Den Posleden, Sofia, 1996, in Bulgarian</ref> and the hunt for "Enemies with a Party Ticket" at the close of the Forties and into the Fifties. 

Armed resistance to the communists began in the immediate aftermath of the ''coup'' and reached sustainable proportions in the countryside after the execution of [[Bulgarian Agrarian National Union]] leader [[Nikola Petkov]] in 1947 and the banning of the [[Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers' Party]] in 1948. By the late 1940s, the Goryani comprised mostly country folk, members of the disbanded opposition hiding from the authorities, former soldiers and officers, former [[Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization]] (IMRO) activists, a handful of former pro-communist Partisans, and communists who had been associated with executed "Enemy with a Party Ticket" [[Traycho Kostov]].

Large-scale forced land collectivisation campaigns began in the Fifties.<ref>“Нов кооперативен сборник, книга 1”, София, 1994 г., изд. „БалБок“ [Nov Kooperativen Sbornik, Vol 1, BalBok, Sofia, 1994, in Bulgarian]</ref> They involved mass intimidation of the peasantry, including threats, extrajudicial imprisonment and torture, and murder.<ref>Габриела Цанева „Миналото в мен“ [Minaloto v Men, Tsekva, Gabriela, in Bulgarian]</ref> This brought a new upsurge of support for the Goryani Movement.

==Numbers and scope==
At first the Goryani were poorly armed and merely hid from the authorities or agitated against them in fear of arrest. By 1947 they had banded into armed Chetas [Bulgarian, чети: bands] in highland and mountain areas.

At that time, the overall number of armed Goryani was estimated at 2000 in 28 Chetas, with another 8000 illicit helpers supplying them with food, shelter, arms and intelligence. By the early 1950s, the [[Bulgarian Committee for State Security|DS secret police]] had identified some 160 Chetas, of which 52 were supplied from abroad or comprised hostile emigres who had infiltrated across borders. The movement was strongest in Southern Bulgaria, particularly in the localities of [[Sliven]], [[Stara Zagora]], [[Velingrad]] and the [[Pirin]] Kray (area).((fact|date=May 2013))

The movement was strongest in the Pirin area in 1947 and 1948. The main Cheta led by Gerasim Todorov controlled the larger part of the Sveti Vrach (today [[Sandanski]]) county in the southwest of the area, traversing as far as the [[Mesta]] valley and [[Razlog]] to the northeast, Nevrokop (today [[Gotse_Delchev,_Blagoevgrad_Province|Gotse Delchev]]) in the south and Dzhumaya (Gorna Dzhumaya, today [[Blagoevgrad]]) in the north. In the spring of 1948, thousands of ''narodna militsia'' police and troops invaded the northern Pirin, imposing a two-week emergency in the area. Gerasim Todorov and his men were encircled and he killed himself on 31 March. This cleared the area of Goryani for a period. In late 1948 Borislav Atanasov and other former IMRO fighters crossed the [[Greece|Greek]] border and renewed resistance.<ref>”Трета възраст”, бр. 39, 2008 г. [Treta Vazrast, No 39, 2008]</ref> 

One of the very few officially acknowledged incidents involving anti-communist resistance involved the death in an armed skirmish of border guard Vergil Vaklinov on 2 July 1953. Vaklinov had ambushed ''diversanti'' who were claimed to have "fulfilled a task" in the Bulgarian interior and were about to cross the Greek border illicitly. The authorities elevated Vaklinov into a short-lived cult figure.<ref>a song for Vergil Vaklinov on http://otkrovenia.com/main.php?action=show&id=168235</ref>
 
By the early 1950s, the Goryani had a propaganda radio station, ''Radio Goryanin'', which broadcast into Bulgaria from Greece. In mid-1951 the radio broadcast an appeal for an insurgent army to form in the centrally located Sliven area, where the movement was at its strongest. Some 13000 police and troops invaded the Balkan mountains near Sliven. Bulgarian leader [[Valko Chervenkov]] monitored events from an armoured personnel carrier in the mountain. The largest Cheta, led by Georgi Stoyanov-Tarpana, also known as Benkovski after [[Georgi Benkovski|a 19th Century Bulgarian popular hero]], was encircled by 6000 troops. It fought them on 1 and 2 June, managing to break the encirclement and rescue their wounded.

Few fell prisoner to the authorities. Some 40 Goryani were killed, but the Cheta commander fled along with his men. Stoyanov was captured by the DS secret police in late 1951 and was later tried and executed. The following year his Cheta continued resisting the authorities and capturing villages. Thus, it captured and held the village of Rakovo near Sliven for three days in 1952.((fact|date=May 2013))

During the same period, some 15 Goryani parachuted into the [[Kazanlak]] and [[Ihtiman]] areas from training camps in [[Yugoslavia]] and [[France]].

Despite the Bulgarian popular tradition of highland, mountain and woodland-based resistance, the movement was active in lowland and farming areas. The [[Dobrudzha]] area in the northeast of Bulgaria saw strong resistance activity, many villages being captured for short periods.((Citation needed|date=April 2010)) The lowland [[Ruse, Bulgaria|Ruse]] area also saw Goryani activity led by Tsanko Ivanov Tsankov-Mecheto and Tsvetana Popkoeva-Tsena.  The Ruse Goryani took an oath formulated by Todor Tsanev. Their commander Tsankov was shot in combat, while Popkoeva was tried ''in absentia'', to be captured and killed without trial in time to celebrate May Day 1952. Todor Tsanev was captured, imprisoned and sent to punishment camps for 11 years, to die peacefully in 1989.<ref>Tsaneva, ''op. cit''.</ref>

==The end of resistance==
Though the Bulgarian authorities brought the Goryani movement under control by the mid-Fifties, there were isolated incidents of violence into the late Fifties and early Sixties.((fact|date=May 2013)) Goryani were last encountered in the Sofia sewerage system in the early/mid-Sixties.((fact|date=May 2013))

==References==
((reflist))

==Sources==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20081220055749/http://www.geocities.com/decommunization/Communism/Bulgaria/Goriani.htm  Горяни]
* [http://www.slovo.bg/showwork.php3?AuID=115&WorkID=2860&Level=1 Габриела Цанева, “Миналото в мен”-повест, В. Търново, 1994, изд.”Сеяч”] към  [http://www.slovo.bg/index.php3 Словото - Българската виртуална библиотека]&nbsp; (повестта я има и в библиотеките)((Br))
* Николай Илиев, “Въоръжената антикомунистическа съпротива”, в.”Про&Анти”, 2007г. броеве 39-45((Br))
* В.”Трета възраст”, 2008г.,бр.39
* Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe. By Kapka Kassabova. Granta; 379 pages; £14.99. To be published in America by Graywolf in September 2017; $16.

[[Категория:Горяни| ]]

[[Category:Anti-communism in Bulgaria]]
[[Category:Anti-communist resistance movements in Eastern Europe]]

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