Shattering Myths: The Curious History of the Bulgarian Law of Obligations

Abstract

While Bulgarian scholars concur that Bulgaria’s Law of Obligations and Contracts, which was enacted in 1950 and which is still in force today following cosmetic changes in the early 1990s, is an original Bulgarian legal text, archival and comparative research shows that it is heavily based on the Italian Codice Civile of 1942. Why would a communist country seek inspiration in a country with a Fascist ideology? Exploring the reasons behind this legislative choice as well as the reasons why this ‘dark’ secret was buried for so long challenges traditional taxonomies of comparative law, reveals the peculiar patterns of legal change, including the key role of the legal scholar in the process, and demonstrates the power of comparative law in shattering myths in legal history.

Keywords: history of the Bulgarian law of obligations, comparative legal history, communist notion of contract, fascist notion of contract, patterns of legal change, myths in legal history, Bulgarian legal history, Italian law of obligations, Polish law of obligations, comparative contract law