Rayko Ivanov Daskalov (Bulgarian: ????? ?????? ????????) (21 December [O.S.

9
December] 1886 26 August 1923) was a Bulgarian interwar politician of the
Bulgarian Agrarian National Union (BANU). One of the chief leaders of the
republican Vladaya Uprising organised by deserted Bulgarian Army troops in 1918
against the government, from 1919 to 1923 Daskalov was a prominent member of the
BAPU governments which were in power in Bulgaria in the early post-World War I
period.

A staunch opponent of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (IMRO),

Daskalov survived an assassination attempt orchestrated by the organisation before
he was assassinated in another IMRO attempt while residing in Prague,
Czechoslovakia.

Contents [hide]
1 Early years and Vladaya Uprising
2 In office and assassination
3 Personal life and commemoration
4 References
Early years and Vladaya Uprising[edit]
Rayko Daskalov was born in the village of Byala Cherkva (today a small town),
located near Veliko Tarnovo in the central north of the Principality of Bulgaria.
He finished the High School of Commerce in Svishtov and in 1907 left for Berlin,
the capital of the German Empire. There, he successfully defended a doctorate in
finance or economics at the Humboldt University in 1911.[1][2][3]

Influenced by early agrarian leader and his fellow-villager Tsanko Tserkovski,

Daskalov had become a BAPU supporter as a youth. He joined the party in 1911 and by
1914 he had established himself as one of its more active figures. Daskalov fought
as a volunteer in the ranks of the Bulgarian Army during the Balkan Wars of
19121913, and his brother Petko died on the front. In 1915, Daskalov and other
BAPU members were sentenced to jail for their alleged involvement in the Declusiere
Affair, a BritishFrench attempt to force Bulgaria into the Entente of World War I.
[3] In prison, Daskalov met Georgi Dimitrov and befriended agrarian leader and
future Prime Minister Aleksandar Stamboliyski.[1][4]

After Entente forces had breached Bulgaria's defensive line at Dobro Pole on 18
September 1918, the retreating and deserting Bulgarian troops organised an uprising
(known as the Vladaya Uprising) against the current government and Tsar Ferdinand
of Bulgaria. The rebelling soldiers reached Kyustendil and Radomir and threatened
the capital Sofia. In an attempt to stop the uprising, Daskalov and Stamboliyski
were promptly released from captivity and envoyed to the insurgents. It was hoped
that due to their popularity, the agrarian leaders would be able to persuade the
insurgents into obedience.[1]

Instead of attempting to peacefully end the uprising, Daskalov, soon supported by

Stamboliyski, put himself in charge of the rebelling troops. On 27 September, he
proclaimed that the monarchist government of Bulgaria was to be overthrown and
established the so-called Radomir Republic, with Stamboliyski as its president and
himself as commander-in-chief.[5] However, the government managed to rally loyalist
troops and quickly crushed the uprising. The end of the rebellion was signalled by
the capture of Radomir on 2 October, only five days after Daskalov's proclamation.
Severely wounded in the arm in the skirmishes, Daskalov managed to escape to
Thessaloniki, Greece by surrendering to the advancing Entente forces.[3] As
Bulgaria's involvement in the war ended soon thereafter in an armistice, he was
pardoned and allowed to return to the country.[1][2][4]

In office and assassination[edit]

After BAPU won the 1919 elections, Rayko Daskalov was a permanent presence in the
party's governments from October 1919 to February 1923, with Stamboliyski as Prime
Minister. As a prominent member of the BAPU cabinet, Daskalov was behind several of
the government's major reforms, including the large-scale land reform and the
introduction of the controversial mandatory labour service. He also suggested the
establishment of BAPU's paramilitary force, the Orange Guard, which he personally
commanded.[4] Daskalov was successively in charge of several ministries during
BAPU's time in power: the Ministry of Agriculture and State Properties (19191920),
the Ministry of Finance (interim, 1920), the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and
Labour (19201922) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and National Health
(19221923).[2][3] He was also elected to parliament for three consecutive National
Assembly terms, from 1919 to 1923.[1]

Politically, Daskalov belonged to the radical leftist wing of BAPU.[6] He was a

major opponent of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (IMRO), an
autonomist organisation in the region of Macedonia which took a stand against the
terms of the Treaty of Neuilly that imposed Yugoslav and Greek rule over most of
the region. In 19221923, Daskalov was at the helm of major repressions against
IMRO's activity in Pirin Macedonia, the northeastern part of the region allotted by
the treaty to Bulgaria. On 15 December 1922, he was targeted by an IMRO-organised
assassination attempt in Sofia. IMRO member (komitadji) Asen Daskalov threw a bomb
at Rayko Daskalov's car in front of the National Assembly building in Sofia,[7]
though the politician was not injured.[8]

In February 1923, Daskalov was released from his duties as government minister and
in May he was sent to Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, as Bulgarian minister
plenipotentiary to that country. On 9 June, with Daskalov in Prague, a military-
supported coup d'tat overthrew Stamboliyski and put in charge a Democratic
Alliance government under right-wing politician Aleksandar Tsankov. Daskalov
attempted to gather international support for the overthrown government and even
founded a BAPU government in exile, though his efforts were of little practical
effect.[4][9]

On 26 August 1923, Daskalov was fatally shot on Holecek Street in the Smchov
district of Prague by another IMRO associate, Yordan Tsitsonkov, under orders from
IMRO leader Todor Aleksandrov.[10][11] The assassin was arrested and shortly
thereafter released, after the jury found him not guilty. Tsitsonkov's attorney was
the known Czech nationalist Jan Renner.[11] Tsitsonkov was retried in October 1924
and sentenced to 20 years in jail under Yugoslav pressure. Tsitsonkov was initially
imprisoned in the Tbor prison but was moved to the prison in Kartouzy after a
rumour spread that he was planning to escape. He committed suicide there by hanging
in January 1926.[9]

Personal life and commemoration[edit]

On 9 February 1919, Rayko Daskalov married Nevena, an agrarian sympathiser from an
affluent Sofia family. Aleksandar Stamboliyski was his best man at the wedding. The
couple had two children, Stefan and Svetla. The daughter, Svetla Daskalova, would
follow in her father's footsteps as a BAPU politician and would become a long-time
Minister of Justice (19661990)[12] during the communist rule of Bulgaria.[1]

Daskalov was initially interred in Prague's Olany Cemetery;[10] his burial

ceremony was booed by anti-agrarian Bulgarian students in the city. In 1946, his
remains were transferred back to Bulgaria and he was reburied in the Borisova
Gradina in Sofia.[9] A bilingual CzechBulgarian commemorative plaque in Smchov,
Prague, marks the site of Daskalov's assassination; the plaque describes Daskalov
as a "great Slav and a fighter for freedom, democracy and republicanism".[13]

A two-storey house in the town centre of Byala Cherkva, built in 1922 in the yard
of the politician's native house, was converted into a museum dedicated to Rayko
Daskalov in 1984. The four rooms of the Rayko Daskalov Museum House exhibit
documents and items related to the life of the politician.[14] There is also a bust
of Daskalov in his native place, sculpted by Veliko Tarnovo artist Orfey Mindov.
[15]