The goryani

In the Transition years after 1989, the topic of goryani (literally “mountaineers”) was loaded with an enormous emotional and moral charge. Authors critical of socialism regularly used the armed goryani movement (1945–1955) as an antidote against weighty (self-)accusations that Bulgaria was the only country in the former Eastern Bloc that had submissively accepted the Soviet regime that had been imposed on it. “Traditional Russophilia” and “communist attitudes” that had dominated before 1944 were most often pointed to as an explanation for the lack of Bulgarian analogues to the Hungarian Revolt, Prague Spring, and Polish Solidarity. ¹ Attempts to “rehabilitate” Bulgaria’s image, on the other hand, cited mass support for the opposition (1945–1947) and particularly the armed resistance of the goryani (1945–1955). ²