Naufragiul vasului bulgar „Boris” (1920)
The Shipwreck of the Bulgarian Ship “Boris" (1920)

Summary/Abstract: The geopolitical and economic realities of the Danube basin at the beginning of the interwar period underwent profound changes in the context of the disintegration of the great empires and the emergence of national states, which also influenced navigation on the Danube. At the end of the First World War, several shipping companies operated on the Danube, the entire Danube fleet consisting of 621 ships with propulsion and 2,921 without propulsion. The historiography of interwar Danube navigation cannot be complete without the analysis of the tragic events that marked this area. The shipwreck of the Bulgarian ship “Boris” is an example in this sense, in which context, the present study aims to point out the historical landmarks of this tragedy, produced on November 10, 1920, as well as the subsequent steps initiated by the Bulgarian and Romanian authorities. The sinking of the Bulgarian ship occurred after the collision with the Romanian ship “Brâncoveanu”, and as a result of the tragedy, 20 people lost their lives. The Bulgarian and Romanian authorities appointed two commissions of inquiry, which, between 1920 and 1923, met several times, without reaching a consensus regarding responsibility for the incident. As early as 1921, the authorities in Sofia requested the establishment of an international arbitration in the matter of the shipwreck of the “Boris”, but it was decided only in 1923. The international arbitrator was appointed the Swedish professor Östen Undén, to whom the Romanian authorities sent the entire documentation on the subject of the approach between the ships “Boris” and “Brâncoveanu”. The failure of the authorities in Sofia to transmit the documentation they had on the subject, led to a “silent suppression” of the issue of the shipwreck of the ship “Boris”, recorded in 1924, in a letter sent by Professor Unden to the Romanian authorities.

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