WI/Plausibility Check: Yugoslavism in Bulgaria

The Undead Martyr

I put this in Post-1900 mainly because I'm sort of wondering if a more desperate Bulgaria might accept a union with Serbia under any circumstances (I sort of recall this being floated as an out there idea to avoid territorial losses after the armistice?) but it could easily apply to pre-1900 as well, so this is sort of arbitrary.

Something I've sort of always wondered is whether there was any sort of "Pan Slavism" in Bulgaria, since from an outsider's perspective Serbia's hankering after the Habsburg provinces was rather... odd. (Nationalists gonna nationalist I guess). Historically speaking Serbia and Bulgaria have trended much more towards the Byzantine (and Ottoman) side of things while Croatia and Slovenia were always part of the "western" ie Roman/Latin/German/Catholic side of things, and IIRC the historical Serbian Empires tended to push south through Macedonia, Albania and parts of Greece rather than north (albeit I think parts of Bosnia were part of Dusan's empire?).

So I guess I'm wondering if it would be at all plausible for a Serbo-Bulgarian union to form an alternate "Yugoslavia" and what such a nation would look like in practice. At a guess I'd say somewhat strengthening the Ottomans so that Serbia and Bulgaria have a longer history of being Turkish provinces, and end up revolting together- perhaps with a single (Romanov?) prince installed as a consequence of some war or another. Presumably this state would focus much more on expanding south, into Thessaly, Albania and Thrace, though gunning for Montenegro, or parts of Bosnia or Austria Hungary are hardly implausible..
 

Dementor

Banned
SealTheRealDeal said:
IIRC there was a coup attempt by a faction that wanted union with Yugoslavia but the Tsar was able to put it down.

edit: yes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1934_Bulgarian_coup_d'état
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Personally I would not rely too much on an article whose only source is a book like Bulgaria, 1300 years, which according to R. J. Crampton, a notable author of a history of Bulgaria, "was produced to accompany the anniversary of Bulgarian statehood, and has value only as an exemplar of how appalling such celebratory writing can become". Keep in mind that supporting a federation with Yugoslavia at this point was a major plank of the Bulgarian Communists, and distracting from that embarrassing (by 1980) fact made an accusation against the 1934 regime useful. The 1934 coupists were strongly nationalist military officers, probably the last people who would want to support the loss of Bulgarian sovereignty. They certainly took measures to improve relations with Yugoslavia and took measures against the Macedonian revolutionaries, but at this point this was a long overdue and necessary measure, since they were a terrorist group that undermined public order in Bulgaria and threatened Bulgaria's international standing, up to a possible intervention against them by Bulgaria's neighbors.
 

The Undead Martyr

Dementor said:
Personally I would not rely too much on an article whose only source is a book like Bulgaria, 1300 years, which according to R. J. Crampton, a notable author of a history of Bulgaria, "was produced to accompany the anniversary of Bulgarian statehood, and has value only as an exemplar of how appalling such celebratory writing can become". Keep in mind that supporting a federation with Yugoslavia at this point was a major plank of the Bulgarian Communists, and distracting from that embarrassing (by 1980) fact made an accusation against the 1934 regime useful. The 1934 coupists were strongly nationalist military officers, probably the last people who would want to support the loss of Bulgarian sovereignty. They certainly took measures to improve relations with Yugoslavia and took measures against the Macedonian revolutionaries, but at this point this was a long overdue and necessary measure, since they were a terrorist group that undermined public order in Bulgaria and threatened Bulgaria's international standing, up to a possible intervention against them by Bulgaria's neighbors.
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What I gathered is that this would likely be a sign of immense desperation and even then probably only possible under the communists.

Macedonia is the sore spot, of course.

I wonder if the reverse- Serbia accepting a Bulgarian ruler, say- is perhaps more likely, say in a CP victory scenario.
 
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