Ivan Balev

Ivan Tsvetkov Balev was a doctor and anarchist.

Life

Born into a family of peasants in Bulgaria, he would often help sheperd animals and often read books on his families farm. He became an anarchist as a teenager and tried to study to become a teacher but was expelled for his anarchist beliefs, before eventually becoming a doctor. He got married in 1925 and had two daughters, moving to Vienna in 1927 to study medicine. He helped establish cooperatives in Austria and France, and used his own passport to smuggle three persecuted anarchists out of Bulgaria.

He befriended Nestor Makhno and suggested he move to Bulgaria for his health. But Makhno declined due to the many exiled White veterans from the Russian Civil War in Bulgaria. He then returned to Bulgaria and became a specialist in urology and radiology, and created an anarchist doctors union. He wanted to fight in the Spanish Civil War with the CNT in 1936, but stayed in Bulgaria for his family, staying to give public speeches on anarchism that were popular with local workers and students.

In 1939 he was arrested and conscripted into World War II as a combat medic, then jailed for three years, then conscripted again. Here he learnt how to speak English, French, German, Spanish and Turkish. He was also described as strong, fit and hardworking.

After the war ended, he became a surgeon, orthopaedist (bone doctor) and was much admired by his patients for his kindness and care. He was next in line to be the First Surgeon of Bulgaria and assisted Paraskev Stoyanov. But in 1948 he was arrested by the Stalinist secret police and tortured for four months, and forced to work in a concentration camp. He was denied letters from his family and aids for his telling of anti-government jokes and refusal to teach new prisoners about the 'New Soviet Man' propaganda to prisoners. He was released in 1953, and worked in the urological ward at a hospital in Shumen for 24 years, returning to Sofia in 1976 and dying in 1981.