Traycho Kostov

Who was Traycho Kostov?

Traicho Kostov Djunev was a Bulgarian politician, former President of the Council of Ministers and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party.

Traicho Kostov, at the age of 52, was sentenced to death by the Bulgarian Supreme Court. He was tried together with ten others in Sofia from 7 December till 14 December 1949. Two days later he was executed.

Kostov was the leading figure of the Bulgarian Communist Party. In the first few years after September 1944, although being less known than Georgi Dimitrov and Vasil Kolarov, Kostov was probably the most active man in the Bulgarian Communist leadership.

On 31 March 1949 Kostov was dismissed from his post of acting President of the Council of Ministers and President of the Economic-Financial Committee of the Council of Ministers. Fifteen days later he was appointed Director of the Bulgarian National Library in Sofia. At a plenum of the Central Committee held on 11 and 12 June 1949 Vasil Kolarov delivered an indictment of Kostov's anti-Party activity. Kostov was accused of tolerating and spreading anti-Soviet sentiment in the Party because of his nationalistic deviation, of using anti-Party methods in the Party and Government leadership and trying to kindle a fractional struggle in the Party, of attempting to cause mistrust in the Communist Party and the Party leader, Georgi Dimitrov. Kostov was dismissed from the Central Committee, expelled from the Party and deprived of his seat in the National Assembly. He was arrested on 20 June 1949.