The Slovene interest for Bulgaria and the Bulgarians (1850-1908)

During the time of the socialist Yugoslavia, Slovene historians devoted considerable attention to the Yugoslav movement before World War I, but they mainly focused on the Slovene relations with Croats and Serbs. It was only rarely mentioned that Slovene political leaders and intellectuals considered also the Bulgarians to be Yugoslavs and looked with great sympathy to them. The article presents and discusses the interest of the Slovene newspapers, intellectuals and literary authors for the Bulgarians and Bulgaria in the second half of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century, pointing out their support to the Bulgarian struggle for independence and their belief that the Bulgarians belonged to the same “great Yugoslav nation”as did the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.