[1] May 1812. Agreement ending the conflict between Russia and Turkey that had started in 1806 (see russo-turkish wars). The tsarist regime acquired Bessarabia, the fertile eastern half of the principality of Moldavia, together with trading rights on the Danube. Just as importantly, Russia was able to redeploy some 60,000 troops to face NAPOLEON I’s imminent invasion of its territory (see also Napoleonic wars).
[2] August 1913. Agreement signed by Serbia,
BULGARIA, ROMANIA, MONTENEGRO, and GREECE. This
Attempted to resolve the territorial disputes at issue in the second of the Balkan wars of 1912-13. Much of what Bulgaria had previously claimed in MACEDONIA and Thrace was yielded to Serbia and Greece, more than doubling the size of each of these countries. This treaty greatly influenced the Bulgarian decision to join with the central powers in WORLD WAR I, while the other signatories supported the Allies.
[3] May 1918. Agreement made between Germany and Romania. The latter had entered WORLD WAR I on the Allied side in August 1916 (via yet another Bucharest Treaty), partly in a desire to force the habsburg empire to relinquish TRANSYLVANIA. Though the Romanians had a large army, this was poorly equipped and trained, and the Germans had long been preparing to confront it. Because of geography, Romania’s military fortunes were closely tied to Russia’s, and when the BOLSHEVIKS withdrew from the war at brest-litovsk in March 1918 there was little option other than to sue for peace with Germany. The terms imposed on the Romanians in May involved ceding parts of Southern and Northern Dobrudja to Bulgaria, relinquishing control over the Carpathian passes, and giving Germany rights over their oil wells for a 90-year period. Romania considered it had relinquished too much, while Bulgaria thought it had gained too little. Although the treaty also confirmed the ambitiousness of the war aims being pursued whenever Germany might hold the upper hand, this Bucharest agreement was soon nullified by the military collapse of the Reich and by the transfer of most of the relevant issues to the PARIS PEACE SETTLEMENT of 1919.
Bukharin, Nikolai Ivanovich (1888-1938). This Russian promoter of communism was a close associate of LENIN, and from 1926 to 1929 the leader of the Comintern (see the international). He participated in the Russian revolution of 1905 and, like many other bolsheviks, spent much of his early life in exile. There he painted, but also published widely as an economic journalist. In November 1917 he took part in the Bolshevik seizure of power (see Russian revolutions of 1917), and shortly afterwards became editor of Pravda, the Communist Party’s official newspaper. On Lenin’s death in 1924, he joined the politburo. He supported stalin against trotsky, and became a leading theorist of “socialism in one country.” in the 1930s, however, he opposed stalin’s program of rapid collectivization and industrialization for the SOVIET union, favouring instead a continuation of the so-called new economic policy. He lost his position as head of the Comintern, and again concentrated on writing. Though briefly rehabilitated in 1934, when he edited Izvestia, another official Communist publication, he became a victim of the great purges. He was charged with treason in March 1938, and along with two other Bolsheviks, Yagoda and Krestinsky, suffered the indignity of a show trial before being shot. in the spirit of glasnost initiated by gorbachev in the 1980s, Bukharin’s reputation was rehabilitated and he was posthumously received back into the ranks of the Communist Party.
Bukovina An area of ancient Moravia dominated by the Carpathian mountains, and now divided between Romania and the Ukraine. Previously ruled by Ottoman turkey, Bukovina was acquired (and named as such) by the habsburg empire in 1775. At the end of World War I, it was wholly transferred to “Greater Romania.” In 1940, following the NAZI-SOVIET PACT of the previous year, the northern section of Bukovina became incorporated into the soviet union as part of the Ukraine, and since the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 it has been governed from Kiev by the independent successor state.
Bulganin, Nikolai (1895-1975), Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the soviet union (1955-8). A loyal follower of stalin, he served as mayor of Moscow from 1931 to 1937. During World War II he held high political office in the red army. He was appointed minister of defense in 1947, and became deputy premier two years later. in the post-Stalin period he was soon promoted to succeed malenkov as chief minister, but found himself increasingly overshadowed by the Communist Party’s general secretary, khrushchev. In 1958 the latter engineered Bulganin’s demotion, alleging “anti-party” activities.
Bulgaria A predominantly Slavic country of the eastern Balkans, including among its borders a Black Sea coastline running between the frontiers with ROMANIA in the north and European Turkey (see turkey and Europe) in the south. After nearly 500 years of Ottoman rule, it recovered a form of independence in the 1870s. The rise of nationalism during the earlier nineteenth century had prompted a series of insurrections. These culminated in the so-called “Bulgarian massacres” of 1876, when the Turkish authorities murdered several thousand of the dissidents. The protective intervention of Tsar Alexander ii soon involved a russo-turkish war that concluded in March 1878 with the Treaty of San Stefano. The particular terms on which this established a large and virtually autonomous principality of Bulgaria were challenged, especially by Austria and Britain, on the grounds that the new creation would become essentially a client state of Russia. Thus, in July, the Berlin congress reduced this “Greater Bulgaria,” allowing the sultanate to continue exercising political authority over Macedonia and a semi-autonomous eastern rumelia. Having been appointed prince by a democratically-elected national constituent assembly in 1879, Alexander of Battenberg attempted in 1885 to reassert full Bulgarian sovereignty over the Ru-melian territory. Though he effectively succeeded in this bid, he had increasingly alienated Tsar ALEXANDER iii of Russia who then helped to enforce the prince’s abdication in September 1886. His replacement, Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, was initially overshadowed by stambolov, who had become prime minister after acting as regent in 1886-7. In 1894, however, Ferdinand sacked this rival and assumed a larger measure of royal control. In 1908 he exploited the deepening Ottoman crisis marked by the revolt of the young TURKS as the occasion to declare full independent statehood for Bulgaria under his own kingship. The Bulgarians subsequently joined in the attack on Turkey that triggered the first of the two Balkan WARS of 1912-13. Though they emerged with gains by the spring of 1913, their anxiety to block Serbia’s designs on Macedonia led them into the second regional conflict that quickly followed. This time they were rapidly defeated, and then required by the Bucharest treaty to make territorial concessions to Serbia, Romania, and Greece.
After opting in 1915 to support Germany in WORLD WAR I, Bulgaria eventually found itself being invaded by the Allies and thereafter suffering the burden of another defeat. Under the NEUILLY TREATY, imposed in November 1919 as part of the Paris peace settlement, its borders were again curtailed by further territorial transfers to Greece and Romania as well as to the new state that would soon be known as Yugoslavia. Though the Bulgarian monarchy survived, the country was run from 1919 to 1923 essentially through the prime-ministerial dictatorship ofthe agrarian reformer stamboliisky. When he was overthrown and murdered by right-wing nationalists, there was also a failed effort at counter-coup from the rising communist movement led by dimitrov. Instability persisted until in 1935 Boris III - king from 1918 through to his death in 1943 (which was then followed by a regency) - took a leading role in the establishment of his own version of authoritarian rule. In world war ii his government initially managed to maintain neutrality. However, Bulgaria was increasingly pressurized by HITLER into supporting the axis effort and eventually into declaring “symbolic war” on the UK and the USA in December 1941. Though no comparable proclamation of belligerence was made against the Soviet Union, it was the red ARMY that invaded the country in September 1944 after the tide of conflict turned. The fact that Bulgaria then quickly declared war on Germany certainly added to the confusion by creating a supremely impressive range of enemies, but it did nothing at all to deflect the relentless advance of sTALiN’s forces.
Upon returning from more than two decades of exile in Moscow, Dimitrov headed first a provisional government and then, after abolition of the monarchy in 1946, a new People’s Republic structured on Stalinist lines. In 1947 the Paris treaty returned Bulgaria to its pre-war (1941) frontiers. Though initially sympathetic to the attempts made by TiTo’s neighboring Yugoslav regime to moderate the Kremlin’s overbearing dictates, Dimitrov had orientated Bulgarian politics firmly towards Soviet requirements by the time of his death in 1949. This line then continued, most notably through the long period of dominance exercised by zhivkov, who was Communist general secretary from 1954 until November 1989. It was only in the very last years of his tenure, when he had to confront the reformist urgings that were now emanating under Gorbachev’s direction from Moscow itself, that Zhivkov’s loyalty to the USSR became severely tested. He was eventually ousted from power as part of the wider revolutions of 1989-91 running throughout the Soviet bloc. In the case of Bulgaria, “post-communism” was not a term indicating total transformation. Since moves towards privatization were particularly painful to its fragile economy (soon further weakened by disruption of links with its major trading partner, due to the Yugoslav civil war), it was hardly surprising that many former communist activists should have continued to play a quite influential role in Bulgarian politics under a new Socialist Party label. By the first years of the twenty-first century, however, the shift towards effective parliamentary politics and greater reliance on capitalist enterprise had gone far enough for this country of some 7.6 million people to succeed in negotiating admission into the European Union (see European integration) with effect from 2007.
Bulgarian massacres (see under Bulgaria)
Bulge, Battle of the Also known as the Ardennes campaign, this was launched by hitler on December 16,1944, towards the end of world war II. He aimed to drive a wedge between the American and British armies and retake the city-port of Antwerp which was central to the supply of the Allied forces. Spearheaded by crack Panzer divisions, this German counter-offensive had the advantage of surprise and of poor weather which hindered Allied air cover. Though the Germans came close to causing an upset, they were undone by American superiority in mobility, manpower, and firepower. By early January 1945, when the Allies were able to resume their own advance, each side had suffered some 100,000 casualties. The battle had destroyed most of Germany’s remaining tanks and aircraft in northwest Europe, and thus speeded up Hitler’s eventual defeat.
Bulow, Bernhard von (1849-1929), Chancellor of the GERMAN EMPIRE (1900-9). Bulow’s bellicose foreign policy did much to divide Europe into two armed camps prior to world war i. After fighting in the franco-prussian war, he entered the diplomatic corps, serving at various embassies before becoming state secretary for foreign affairs (1877-9). Following ambassadorial stints in Bucharest and Rome, he returned to that post in 1897. Three years later he was appointed Reich chancellor and prime minister of Prussia. Much of his energy was devoted to an aggressive external policy, which led in 1905 to the first of the MOROCCAN CRISES and eventually to the formation of an anti-German triple entente. He antagonized Russia in the 1908 crisis over Bosnia by lending support to Austria-Hungary. That same year he had to defend william ii, after an interview to the Daily Telegraph in which the Kaiser had let slip his plans for naval enlargement. The emperor felt that Buulow had given him insufficient support during the resulting furore, and in 1909 took the opportunity of a budgetary row to dismiss him. In 1914-15 he served again as ambassador at Rome, but could not hold Italy to the terms of the triple ALLIANCE nor indeed prevent her eventual entry into the world war on the Allied side.
Buonarroti, Filippo (1761-1837), Italian radical and revolutionary. As a sympathizer with the FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1789, he took French citizenship and mixed in jacobin circles, acting for the regime on a number of missions to Italy. Always attracted to the most radical elements, he was imprisoned for his part in babeuf’s communist “Conspiracy of Equals” (1796). Having been released by NAPOLEON I in 1806, Buonarroti immediately returned to conspiracy, and was involved in the foundation of revolutionary secret societies, notably the “sublime and perfect masters.” He had a profound influence on a number of radical thinkers and activists including marx, BLANQUI, and MAZZINI.
Bureaucracy System of government in which principal decisions are taken by state officials rather than elected representatives. The term has two further related meanings: it may serve as the collective noun for any major body of administrators, or as synonym for the sheer complexity of administrative procedures.
By the later eighteenth century the development of absolutism, for example in Prussia, had already involved a growth in governmental functions. Yet monarchical powers were still frequently undermined by weaknesses of local implementation. The early-modern state also had a limited view as to its own responsibilities - essentially the safeguarding ofinternal stability, the raising of revenue, and the prosecution of foreign policy and war. In its quest radically to overhaul the institutions of the ancien regime, the french REVOLUTION OF 1789 massively expanded state departments and controls, something which was resented on the nation’s peripheries, where counter-revolution became rife (see federalism [2]). Bureaucratic rationalization was taken further by NAPOLEON I. His aims of maintaining stability at home and increasing empire abroad were partly underpinned by the standardization of government offices, something epitomized in the prefectoral system. Napoleon also instituted the grandes ecoles, designed to train the civil servants of the future, a tradition which would be maintained in France with the establishment in 1945 of the Ecole Nationale d’Administration. Enlarged bureaucratization was also a feature of the administrative system through which METTERNICH endeavoured, until his fall in 1848, to maintain control over the disparate regions of
The HABSBURG EMPIRE.
During the course of the nineteenth century states took on greater responsibilities within spheres such as education which had hitherto been left chiefly to private and philanthropic action. The social changes arising from rapid growth in urbanization and industrialization also prompted enlargement both of central and of local bureaucratic machinery. This involved governments in recruiting a growing number of lawyers, engineers, and other technocratic professionals who often jostled with the nobility for positions of importance within the burgeoning civil service. The trend towards greater bureaucratization constituted a challenge to liberalism’s emphasis on limited state power, and was also extensively studied by other critics such as marx and the distinguished German sociologist Max Weber. Britain was perhaps the least bureaucratized society, yet that was not necessarily the case in the commercial sphere where companies became highly specialized, with departments devoted to research and development, advertising, and markets: for example, while promoting the 1889 Paris exhibition, the travel company Thomas Cook distributed 12.5 million announcements of one kind or another.
The plight of the individual threatened by impenetrable procedures and entangled in “red tape” was brilliantly conveyed early in the twentieth century through the novels of Franz Kafka (e. g. The Trial, posthumously published in 1925). The march of bureaucracy was now further accelerated by the experience of the two world wars, when states made every effort to mobilize their “home fronts.” It is arguable that the liberal democracies proved the more adaptable in this process, though in the case of Britain bureaucratization may well have entrenched outmoded business and labor practices and thus contributed to longer-term economic decline. The authoritarian regimes associated with fascism and communism were certainly weighed down by officialdom, even if this also remained vital to their functioning. Some historians contend that Nazism deliberately designed state departments to have overlapping functions so as to reinforce the power of the center. Whatever the case, the so-called final solution could not have operated on such a scale without the backing of a large number of technocratic functionaries ofthe kind epitomized by eichmann. The experience of world war ii reinforced bureaucracy in the post-1945 liberal democracies which considered that they now had an obligation, stronger than in the nineteenth century, to promote welfarism. Though this tendency was challenged by proponents of free-mar-ket economics (e. g. by thatcher in the 1980s), it proved difficult to reduce the machinery of state - whose powers of surveillance in particular were increasingly enhanced through developments in computing (see also communications) and through pressures to combat terrorism. By the early twenty-first century, under conditions of increasing internationalization and globalization, there existed a proliferation of supra-national institutions manned by technocrats. it was especially notable that, within the context of European integration, the complaints of Eurosceptics were typically centered on claims about “Brussels” having come to epitomize a “democratic deficit” linked to an excess of bureaucracy in all three of the meanings previously cited.
Burgenland (see under trianon, treaty of)
Burschenschaften German term for certain types of student organizations, and used most particularly in the context of those fraternities active during the period after the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815. The Burschenschaften were generally supportive of liberalism (though also strong on duelling) and of greater german unification. As such, they incurred the displeasure of metternich and were banned under the terms of the CARLSBAD DECREES, aimed at curbing political activism within the universities. Many survived, however, and played a part in the revolutions of 1848-9. All Burschenschaften were dissolved in 1935 and brought into the Nazi-organized groupings of Kamaradschaften, but a number were refounded in the 1950s.
World History
