Freemasonry dates back to the medieval workshop organizations, and its forms, symbols and specific hierarchy are connected with them. Its major postulates are mental, moral, and material perfection of mankind, solidarity, submission to the state power, patriotism, and acceptance of labor in all its forms.

Freemasonry appeared on the Bulgarian lands quite late – as early as the beginning of the nineteenth century. Foreigners, dedicated to freemasonry, who arrived in the Bulgarian towns along the Danube at the time, tried to establish freemasonry centers not once or twice. They attempted to attract Bulgarians – mostly people having trade relations with the countries from Mid- and Central Europe. At the time, Bulgaria was still part of the Ottoman Empire. Lots of Turkish officers and dignitaries from the garrisons in the Danube region, also led freemasonry life, but didn’t accept any Bulgarian members. Still, the founder of the organized freemasonry in Bulgaria was the Bulgarian Ivan Nikolov Vedar. He became acquainted with the principles of freemasonry at the time of his travelling to Europe. On the twenty-seventh of November, nineteen seventeen, the Great symbolic Bulgarian lodge was solemnly founded, and it united all the existing lodges and centers.

Together with freemasonry, the Jewish freemasonry disseminated. Its principles and organizational forms were similar to those of the freemasonry. But its members were only Jews. Interestingly, traditionally in freemasonry there are thirty-three degrees, and in Jewish freemasonry, the degrees are up to one hundred.
In nineteen fourteen, Jewish lodge number seven hundred and fifty-one, named Teshua, was founded in Yambol. One of the most prominent members of the Jewish freemasonry at the beginning of the century was Samuil Yulzari. The Jewish freemasonry lodge in Yambol was part of the Regional great lodge in Istanbul, which other members were lodges from Thessaloniki, Edirne, Beograd, Cairo, and Beirut. It was the seventh of a total of ten in Bulgaria, in the period between eighteen ninety-seven and nineteen twenty-nine.

At the very beginning of the nineteen thirties, the membership of the lodge included between twenty-seven and twenty-nine people. The last record of the members of Yambol Jewish freemasonry, who gathered once in two weeks, was that of the fourth of June, nineteen thirty-nine. Nobody knows why Yambol Jewish freemasonry ceased its work during the next year. But while it existed, it was an important element of the system of Jewish organizations. It dealt mostly with charity and educational activities.

On the other hand, the Great Bulgarian lodge struggled to educate hereditary freemasons from the very beginning. The lodges accepted children of freemasons, who were sixteen years old. Then, the age floor became twenty-one. There were three freemasonry degrees – pupil, comrade, and master, with their corresponding signs. A common thing for all freemasons, which has remained to present days, is the black tuxedo with a white front, a white bow-tie, white gloves, and a black top-hat.

,,Love, truth, labor’’ was the motto, approved by the First convention of the Great Bulgarian lodge in nineteen nineteen.  The lodge established its own organizations, and under their cover it acted in the society and ensured the money needed for its work. For this reason, an educational institute “Zarya” was founded soon. Its branch was founded in Yambol in nineteen twenty-five. Three years later, on the twenty-eight of February, nineteen twenty-eight, lodge number nine was sanctified in Yambol, called Kabile. According to the organization system of freemasonry, it was called a workshop, and could accept new members. Until September, nineteen twenty-eight, there were sixteen members in Yambol freemasonry lodge. In nineteen twenty-three, they were twenty-three.

Yambol lodge Kabile existed till the end of July, nineteen forty, when the Great Bulgarian lodge disbanded. The Law for protection of the nation was passed the following year, and freemasonry was totally prohibited in Bulgaria. After the ninth of September, nineteen forty-four, the new government declared freemasons to be foreign spies and took up a prosecution against them.