Vegetarian Land Communes and the Tolstoyan Communities in Bulgaria in the Early Twentieth Century

• In Event: Left Perspectives on State Socialism IV: Land, Soil, Communes, and the Rural

Abstract

This paper presents on the history of the vegetarian land communes in Bulgaria influenced by the Russian writer and social thinker Lev Tolstoy. Pledging to build a life “without the exploitation of one being by another,” their members emphasized connection to land and the environment and practiced horizontal communalism, egalitarian spiritualism, and vegetarianism in conscious opposition to private property and the enclosures of land, against militarism and the use of violence, and against the authoritarianism and hierarchies of state power and the Church. There were over a dozen communes formed in Bulgaria during the first three decades of the twentieth century, and most of them lasted for only a few years. In this talk I bring into focus the history of a vegetarian land commune founded in 1926 in Proslav, near Plovdiv, Bulgaria, which survived for over thirty years and served as a hub for vegetarian, Tolstoyan, anarchist, and alternative spiritual communities in the country. I present materials from the rich archives of the community and the movements.

Author

• Zhivka Valiavicharska, Pratt Institute