It might not be visible today, but Bulgaria was the first tobacco producer and exporter in the 1980s. Before that, tobacco cultivation in Bulgaria started in the 18th century when Bulgaria was still a part of the Ottoman Empire. Up until the Second World War, Bulgaria developed even more this cultivation for it to hold an important part in the country’s economy. During communist Bulgaria, tobacco cultivation and exportation exploded to the point that “half the population smoked and a fourth worked in the tobacco industry” in 1982. Thus, tobacco is intrinsically linked to Bulgaria’s society, economy, and politics.
This article proposes a focus on the history of women, tobacco cultivation, and smoking in Bulgaria since the 19th century. It is based on the wonderful work of Mary C. Neuburger: Balkan Smoke: Tobacco and the Making of Modern Bulgaria,published in 2013 by Cornell University Press.
I. Women and Smoking in Bulgaria: from the 19th Century to Second World War
A. Tobacco entering Bulgaria and women’s life
Bulgaria, after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 and its partial liberation, was still de jure a part of the Ottoman Empire. It was nonetheless de facto already functioning independently after 1878 and even more after the Unification in 1885 until it declared its independence in 1908. Tobacco was introduced in the Ottoman Empire more than two centuries earlier, but it started to be more cultivated in Bulgaria in the 19th century. Smoking first started among Muslim men, then Muslim women in the 17th century, but not in public spaces. Women were gathering and smoking only “in the baths, at fashionable parties, or in the salons of elite Ottoman or foreign homes”.
It then slowly entered Christians’ lives, both men and women, almost at the same time, for it to be common in the mid-19th century. But, as for Muslim women, smoking for Christian women was restricted to domestic space “behind closed doors or high garden walls”, while men were gathering and smoking in the kafene (coffeehouse) and the kruchma (tavern), places of socialization reserved to men.
A woman herself, though not Bulgarian, documented smoking among Bulgarian women in the 19th century: Fanny Blunt (1839-1926). She was a diplomat’s wife and spent years in the Ottoman Balkans where she observed and reported smoking among women.
B. Emancipation and Female Figures
Slowly and scarcely, a handful of women started smoking in public in the 19th century and a bit more until the Second World War. They even started entering the kafene and European-style cafés, but later, only after World War I. They were only a few because being a woman in a public space without being accompanied by a man was almost impossible in society at that time. Learning about their profile, one can see that they were all quite strong and independent. But it has to be mentioned that most of them could be allowed this behavior because they were part of the Westernized elites and were claiming, directly or indirectly more freedom and more modern values.
Another type of women smoking in public were women of « questionable repute », such as prostitutes, and women dancing and singing. Among these women from intellectual and cultural elites, the most famous and noticeable ones are Baba Nedelya Petkova, Vela Blagoeva, and Raina Kostensteva.
Baba Nedeliya Petkova (1826-1894), an important figure of the Bulgarian National Revival and pioneer for girls’ education in the 19th century, “was known to have scandalized Bulgarian sensibilities with her public smoking habit”.
Vela Blagoeva (1858-1921), writer and founder of the women’s socialist movement, was the wife of Dimitur Blagoev, the founder of the Bulgarian socialist movement at the end of the 19th century. Vela « was a well-known smoker and one of Bulgaria’s first “modern girls” ».
Raina Kostensteva (1885-1967) was a literary figure of the early 20th century and interwar period. She was often seen in the kafena and the kafene-sladkarnitsi (café-pastry shops). She also was the woman who wrote and denounced, even criticized, the situation of women and smoking in Bulgaria, as being slowed and limited because of the Orthodox Christian values.
II. Fallen Women and Abstinence
A. Fallen Women
As seen above, smoking women in public was extremely rare. They were either “westernized” or “women of questionable morals” (singers, dancers, prostitutes). In both cases, they were seen by the vast majority of society as morally compromised women acting against traditional values, impersonating the symptoms of moral decline and depravity. They represented social decay and were suspicious. They were seen and categorized as “fallen women”. But, from today’s point of view, they were a small expression of the changes happening more widely in society at that time: women getting a little bit more liberty and rights.
B. Abstinence
In opposition to smoking in Bulgaria appeared abstinence movements. They were initially influenced by American Protestant missionaries who started their activity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and led those campaigns at that time and during the interwar period. Their anti-smoking (and anti-alcohol) campaigns aimed at keeping traditional family values and targeted both men and women. Among the actors of those campaigns, we could find women, even women as leaders.
Vera Zlatareva (1905-1977) and Ianka Tosheva were such figures. But they were not against smoking in itself only regarding tobacco. They were writing (especially in Vestnik na zhenata, (“Journal of the Woman”) and fighting for more rights for all women, and wanted them to “become modern [women] only by being both abstinent and socially conscious”. In this way, they knew Bulgarian women had been emancipated in different ways in the last decades, but they had to keep being respectable and responsible, and off smoking in this regard.
III. Tobacco Work and Harvest and Women
A. Workers and Wars
The tobacco industry started to hold a major importance in Bulgaria’s economy in the early 20th century. Thousands of people were working in the cultivation and harvest of tobacco. Among those workers, women were far from absent in cultivating and processing the “gold of Bulgaria”. Their role and work were even more important during the Balkan Wars and the two World Wars. Men were fighting at the front and women had to keep running one of the country’s primary economic resources, replacing men. They also had to multiply the production and harvest for national consumption and expectation, especially in Germany.
Even if women had a major role in those times and this side of the economy, their conditions as workers did not improve nor were acknowledged. They had to work even harder to keep their families, the economy, and the country running. They were not thanked nor they hard work estimate.
B. Protestations
Women in tobacco cultivation, in addition to their work, also called for peace in 1917, as was the case more generally in Europe. “By December, around ten thousand workers, many tobacco workers among them, swarmed the streets calling for peace and revolution. The upheavals rapidly snowballed into antiwar protests across the country and on the front and led to mass desertions”. These demonstrations highlighted women’s increasing assertiveness in public life, challenging both economic exploitation and societal norms.
During interwar decades, tobacco workers were among the most vocal labour groups and were advocating for improved rights and conditions. Despite these efforts, the industry continued to rely on cheap female labour, perpetuating cycles of inequality. Changing was to happen after the Second World War.
IV. Smoking and Women during Communism
A. Smoking expanding massively to women
Communist Bulgaria (1944-1989) marked a significant shift in attitudes toward both women and smoking. The country developed tobacco cultivation, harvest, and export as one of its main economic fields and was under the monopoly of Bulgartabak. This importance can be seen: “Half the population smoked and a fourth worked in the tobacco industry” in 1982. Women working in the tobacco industry and smoking can be seen for the whole period as a growing phenomenon. This time, women were finally acknowledged and praised: “[T]oday tobacco is the gold of Bulgaria, and women are its creators”. Women even appeared on a map in the Balgarski Tiutiun (“Bulgarian Tobacco”) movie in 1979. Women consuming tobacco were more and more and “by the late 1970s and 1980s, […] the number of women smokers skyrocketed”.
The State relied on its exports of tobacco to the East Bloc and especially the USSR, but it also promoted national tobacco consumption. Through various campaigns, it promoted smoking as a modern way of life and of expression, including among women. Women’s literature, ads, and brands were also created: the “Femina“ brand of cigarettes, for example, especially targeted women, playing on independence, progress, and sophistication to sell to this feminine public. Modern women and, even more, smoking women, embodied new society’s values and habits: “Women played important roles in the visible discarding of rural backwardness in favour of a modern material life”.
B. Anti-Smoking and Women
Despite all these progresses, movements and campaigns against smoking for women still exist. One of the mediums of such campaigns was the journal Trezvenost (“Sobernity”) in which one could see images of people, both men and women, smoking, and pictured in a bad way. Those campaigns in different layers of society asked women to stop smoking for two main reasons: for moral (sexual) aspects, and mainly for health aspects.
The moral (sexual) aspects denounced and wanted to stop were motivated because women smoking were seen as manly, and the sexual (phallic) evocation of a cigarette in the mouth of women made them less desirable in bed. This second aspect is directly linked to one of the two health aspects: since less attractive, women were having fewer babies. In that sense, “[s]moking women […] posed a concerted threat to the Bulgarian nation itself because of issues related to reproduction and child-rearing”. Those narratives were stronger in the late 1970s and the 1980s when traditional values made their comeback.
The State was thus torn between promoting smoking for women as a marker of emancipation, modernization, and equality, but also for them to buy and help the economy; and refraining women from smoking because it endangered the future of Bulgaria.
Conclusion
The history of women, smoking, and tobacco in Bulgaria reflects the interplay of gender, culture, and politics. From private indulgences to public controversies, tobacco has served as both a tool of emancipation and a source of societal tension. Women’s roles in the tobacco industry and their evolving relationship with smoking offer valuable insights into Bulgaria’s and Bulgarian women’s journey through modernity, war, socialism, and global phenomena.
