Goryani

The Goryani movement (Bulgarian: Горянско движение) or Goryanstvo (Bulgarian: горянство: Goryanism) was an active guerrilla resistance against the Bulgarian communist regime. It began immediately after the Ninth of September coup d'état in 1944 which opened the way to communist rule in Bulgaria, reached its peak between 1947 and 1954, subsided by the late Fifties and ended by the early Sixties. The movement covered the entire country, including urban areas and is known to have been the first organised anti-Soviet armed resistance in eastern Europe as well as the longest lasting.

The members of the movement were dubbed Goryani (Bulgarian: Горяни: ones of the forest), most likely not by themselves but pejoratively by the authorities or by street wits. Extremely scant official acknowledgements of the movement termed its members diversanti (Bulgarian: диверсанти: subversives, saboteurs and invariably stressed that they had been sent across the border by "imperialist centres".) Though helped to a significant extent by emigre Bulgarians and by foreign powers, the Goryani movement was mostly indigenous and spontaneous.