Petkov, Petko Dimitrov

Born May 4, 1891, in Sofia; died there June 14, 1924. Bulgarian politician and public figure; leader of the left wing of the Bulgarian Agrarian People’s Union.

Petkov graduated from the law faculty of the University of Paris in 1911. He was in the diplomatic service from 1920 to 1922 and served as first assistant to A. Stamboliski at the Genoa Conference of 1922. He was director of the political desk of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1922-23. After the fascist coup d’etat of June 9, 1923, Petkov advocated a united front with the Bulgarian Communist Party in the struggle against fascism. From August 1923 he published the newspaper Zashtita (from September, Narodna zashtita), where he proposed the establishment of a workers’ and peasants’ government. Petkov was killed by a fascist hired assassin.