--- title: "Bulgarian Vegetarian Union - IVU - International Vegetarian Union" description: "Bulgarian Vegetarian Union: The first mention we have of Bulgaria is in the Vegetarian Messenger (VSUK magazine), January, 1923, which reports on the existence of the Bulgarian Vegetarian Union, made up from societies in many small towns. It said the founder was a friend of Tolstoy." url: "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=article&id=2687:history-societies-bulgaria&catid=48" date: "2026-11-06T00:04:10+00:00" language: "en-GB" --- # Bulgarian Vegetarian Union The first mention we have of Bulgaria is in the *Vegetarian Messenger* (VSUK magazine), January, 1923, which reports on the existence of the Bulgarian Vegetarian Union, made up from societies in many small towns. It said the founder was a friend of Tolstoy. [![](https://ivu.org/images/legacy/history/history/tolstoy/veg%20bulgary%20tolstoj%201s.jpg)](https://ivu.org/images/legacy/history/history/tolstoy/veg%20bulgary%20tolstoj%201.jpg) *a postcard featuring Tolstoy, published by the Bulgarian Vegetarian Union in the 1920s or 30s. (pictures from Jan Stastny, Prague) click on the pictures for a bigger image* [![](https://ivu.org/images/legacy/history/history/tolstoy/veg%20bulgary%20tolstoj%202s.jpg)](https://ivu.org/images/legacy/history/history/tolstoy/veg%20bulgary%20tolstoj%202.jpg) From the report of the 1923 IVU Congress, held in Stockholm, Sweden: > ... The Chairman said that, owing to the great disturbance caused by the War the Committee felt as if we ought almost to make a new beginning and that the Constitution would need some alteration. He invited members for the International Vegetarian Unon and the delegates from the following countries expressed their desire to join :- .... , Bulgaria, .... The report from the 1926 Congress, held in London, England, makes no mention of Bulgaria. From the report of the 1929 Congress, held in Steinschönau, Czeckoslovakia: > ... The Congress was not without its revelations and perhaps the most remarkable of all was that of the Bulgarian delegate who told us of a White Brotherhood in his country, numbering 35,000, every member of which is an abstainer from fish, flesh and fowl as food, from intoxicating liquors and from tobacco. ... > > ... The very list of speakers at the Congress was impressve. Including as it did, the names of ...., M. Pamporov (Sofia), .... Thirteen nations in all were represented at the Congress - ..., Bulgaria, .. From the report of the 1932 Congress, held in Berlin & Hamburg, Germany: > ...\[*from a talk by Valentin Bulgakov, Prague*\] Tolstoy had been a great power, and his teaching had borne fruit over a very wide area, not only in Russia, but in other countries, e.g., Bulgaria. ... Valentin Bulgakov was Tolstoy's Secretary for some time, so it could have been him who was responsible for setting up the Union in Bulgaria in 1923. The 1935 Congress report makes no mention of Bulgaria, but the report from 1938 opens with:. > Many circumstances threatened to mar the success of the tenth International Vegetarian Congress, originally planned to be held in Bulgaria and at comparatively short notice changed to Norway. \- there was a note of apology for absence from the Bulgarian Society. The 1947 Congress report makes no mention of Bulgaria but, by that time the country was under communist control and vegetarian societies were probably banned. Further details from this period will be added as they become available, but vegetarianism would have been suppressed during the communist era. For details of Bulgaria today go to www.ivu.org and select Europe/Bulgaria Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. A note on this archive. The history section of this website is drawn from a body of legacy content originally compiled by John Davis, former manager of the International Vegetarian Union. It represents his curation of historical material, and in places includes passages written by him directly. Over the years, the IVU website has migrated between several different hosting servers. In the course of these migrations, a number of PDF files were unfortunately lost, and **some links to PDF documents may no longer function**. Where this is the case, we have chosen to leave the original link text in place, as it may itself carry information of historical value. - Hits: 836 ## Schema ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=article&id=2687:history-societies-bulgaria&catid=48","url":"https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=article&id=2687:history-societies-bulgaria&catid=48","name":"Bulgarian Vegetarian Union","description":"History of the Bulgarian Vegetarian Union, a federation of local societies whose founder was a friend of Tolstoy, which sought to join IVU at the 1923 Congress.","inLanguage":"en","isPartOf":[{"@id":"https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html#archive"},{"@id":"https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html#member-societies"}],"about":[{"@type":"Country","name":"Bulgaria"},{"@id":"https://ivu.org/#/schema/organization/bulgarian-vegetarian-union"}],"publisher":{"@id":"https://ivu.org/#organization"}},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://ivu.org/#/schema/organization/bulgarian-vegetarian-union","name":"Bulgarian Vegetarian Union","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Bulgaria"},"description":"Federation of local vegetarian societies, first recorded in 1923.","subjectOf":{"@id":"https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=article&id=2687:history-societies-bulgaria&catid=48"}}]} ``` ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://ivu.org" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "History of IVU", "item": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "History of the Vegetarian Societies", "item": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=category&id=46" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "history", "item": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=category&id=47" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 5, "name": "societies", "item": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=category&id=48" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 6, "name": "Bulgarian Vegetarian Union", "item": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html" } ] } ``` ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Article", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html" }, "headline": "Bulgarian Vegetarian Union", "description": "Bulgarian Vegetarian Union: The first mention we have of Bulgaria is in the Vegetarian Messenger (VSUK magazine), January, 1923, which reports on the existence of the Bulgarian Vegetarian Union, made up from societies in many small towns. It said the founder was a friend of Tolstoy.", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "International Vegetarian Union", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://ivu.org/images/logos/logo-ivu-tranparent-background.png" } }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Alex Fernandes", "url": "https://ivu.org/international-council.html" }, "datePublished": "2026-10-16T00:00:16+00:00", "dateCreated": "2026-05-29T01:57:30+00:00", "dateModified": "2026-10-08T00:53:43+00:00" } ```