The Bulgarian History Podcast · Eric Halsey

239 Love and Depression

·27 min·1 clip

Balkan exports generated substantially less income because global wheat production expanded in Canada, the US, Argentina, and Australia.

1. The Bulgarian History Podcast episode 239, “Love and Depression,” links Bulgaria’s early Great Depression to Tsar Boris III’s 1930 marriage story. 2. Eric Halsey hosts the episode, writes and produces it, and cites Misha Glennie and Graf for economic and royal details. 3. The episode asks how Bulgaria’s agrarian economy and Boris’s marriage plans collided in 1930. 4. Bulgaria’s economy remained overwhelmingly agrarian, while industrial production rose 300% between 1923 and 1928. 5. Light industry included textiles and food, and heavier projects included the Pernik thermal power plant, dams, and a new shipyard in Varna. 6. Agriculture had reached pre-war production levels by the mid-1920s, but peasant incomes still lagged behind the years before the Balkan Wars and the First World War. 7. Misha Glennie’s quoted account says peasant diversification into tobacco and soft fruit faced declining prices in the second half of the decade. 8. Glennie also says agriculture accounted for 90% of exports from the region, yet those exports generated less income because production expanded in Canada, the US, Argentina, and Australia. 9. The host argues that Bulgarian leaders had invested in the military, the civil service, and urban projects, but not enough in modern agriculture and infrastructure. 10. Bulgaria borrowed heavily on international markets, but the resulting debt was hard to service because the economy did not generate enough tax revenue. 11. The lev was overvalued, so Bulgarian exports became more expensive while imports became cheaper. 12. Average annual income figures place Bulgaria at $284, Romania at $243, Yugoslavia at $330, Greece at $397, and the United States at $1,368. 13. After the US stock market crashed, American investors pulled money out of other countries and Bulgaria lost access to foreign capital markets. 14. Tariffs, including the Smoot-Hawley tariff, raised the cost of trade and hit Bulgarian exports especially hard. 15. In 1930, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia held another border-security conference and agreed on railroad connections and property issues split by the border. 16. The first Balkan conference for cooperation met in Athens in October 1930, but Bulgaria remained skeptical because it would not renounce all territorial claims. 17. The Mikhailovist wing of the VMRO bombed Niš railway station in Serbia and bought a thousand rifles through contacts with the exiled Croatian Ustaša in Italy. 18. Boris was 34, still a bachelor, and the episode quotes Graf on Giovanna de Savoia as different from the “young ladies” Boris knew. 19. The episode suits listeners who want Bulgarian economic history and dynastic politics. 20. It will feel slow to listeners who want only battles or military operations.

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