Prominent Bulgarians

Prominent Bulgarians - A Compilation by BONKA

Anton Nikolov Donchev (Bulgarian: Антон Николов Дончев, born 14 September 1930) is a Bulgarian writer of historical novels and screenwriter of Bulgarian historical drama films. Since 2003 he has been an academic at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. He is well known in the country and abroad with his novel Time of Parting. Donchev graduated from Veliko Tarnovo High School in 1948 and graduated "Law" at the Sofia University in 1953. He was denied the prestigious post of Veliko Tarnovo Judge, and started writing as a profession.

Peter Petroff (October 21, 1919 – February 27, 2003) was a Bulgarian American inventor, engineer, NASA scientist, and adventurer.

Dimitar D. Sasselov ( Bulgarian : Димитър Д. Съселов ) (b. 1961) is a Bulgarian astronomer based in the United States . He is a Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University and director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative.

Minko Balkanski: Born 1928 in Oriaxovitsa near Stara Zagora, is a professor of physics at the University of Sorbonne - Marie and Pierre Curie in Paris. Over 30 books published and 2000 articles. For his contributions to science, Professor Balkanski received France's highest distinction, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor of France, as well as Chevalier of the National Order of Merit of France.

Ivan Nikolov Stranski ( Bulgarian : Иван Николов Странски ; German : Iwan Nicolá Stranski ; 2 January 1897–1979) was a prominent Bulgarian physical chemist .

The founder of the Bulgarian school of physical chemistry, Stranski is considered the father of crystal growth research. Stranski headed the departments of physical chemistry at Sofia University and the Technical University of Berlin , of which he was also rector . The Stranski-Krastanov growth model and the Kossel-Stranski model have been named after Ivan Stranski.

Krassimir D. Kolarov Ph.D.: Director Embedded Media at Apple. LinkedIn Profile. Online resume.

Vlad Tenev: A young Bulgarian-American billionaire entrepreneur who was the co-founder (with Baiju Bhatt) and CEO of Robinhood, a US-based financial services company.

Hristo Stoichkov (Bulgarian: Христо Стоичков, pronounced; born 8 February 1966) is a Bulgarian former professional footballer who is a football commentator for TUDN. A prolific forward, he is regarded as one of the best players of his generation and is widely considered the greatest Bulgarian footballer of all time. He was runner-up for the FIFA World Player of the Year award in 1992 and 1994, and received the Ballon d'Or in 1994. In 2004, Stoichkov was named by Pelé in the FIFA 100 list of the world's greatest living players.

At club level, Stoichkov spent six years at CSKA Sofia and became the top goalscorer in Europe in 1990, receiving the European Golden Shoe. In 1990, he joined Barcelona where he earned the Spanish nickname "El Pistolero" ("The Gunslinger"), and was part of Johan Cruyff's "Dream Team" that won four consecutive La Liga titles and the 1992 European Cup. During his time at the club, he formed a prolific strike partnership with Romário. Cruyff was largely instrumental in bringing him to Barcelona where he quickly developed into one of the most prolific forwards in the world.

Stoichkov was a member of the Bulgaria national team that finished fourth at the 1994 FIFA World Cup, of which he was the top scorer with six goals and received the World Cup Golden Boot. He was ranked the third best player at the World Cup, after Romário and Roberto Baggio, and received the World Cup Bronze Ball. Apart from his footballing talent, he was notable for his on-pitch temper. In his playing career he was also nicknamed The Dagger (Камата).

John Vincent Atanasoff, OCM, (October 4, 1903 – June 15, 1995) was an American physicist and inventor, best known for being credited with inventing the first electronic digital computer.

Atanasoff invented the first electronic digital computer in the 1930s at Iowa State College (now known as Iowa State University). Challenges to his claim were resolved in 1973 when the Honeywell v. Sperry Rand lawsuit ruled that Atanasoff was the inventor of the computer. His special-purpose machine has come to be called the Atanasoff–Berry Computer. Atanasoff was born on October 4, 1903 in Hamilton, New York to Ivan Atanasov an electrical engineer and a mother who was school teacher. Atanasoff's father, Ivan Atanasov was of Bulgarian origin, born in 1876 in the village of Boyadzhik, close to Yambol, then in Ottoman Empire. While Atanasov was still an infant, his own father was killed by Ottoman soldiers after the Bulgarian April Uprising.

Elias Canetti (Bulgarian: Елиас Канети; 25 July 1905 – 14 August 1994) was a German-language author, born in Ruse, Bulgaria to a merchant family. They moved to Manchester, England, but his father died in 1912, and his mother took her three sons back to the continent. They settled in Vienna.

Canetti moved to England in 1938 after the Anschluss to escape Nazi persecution. He became a British citizen in 1952. He is known as a modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, "for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power". He is noted for his non-fiction book Crowds and Power, among other works.

Other notable Bulgarians throughout History:

Vasil Levski (1837–1873), revolutionary and national hero

Peter Deunov (1864–1944), spiritual master of a school of Esoteric Christianity

Asparukh of Bulgaria (d. 681), founder of the First Bulgarian Empire

Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria (c. 866–927), ruled during the Golden Age of Bulgarian culture and military power

Hristo Botev (1848–1876), national poet and revolutionary

Knyaz Boris I of Bulgaria (d. 907), ruled during the Christianization of Bulgaria

Saints Cyril and Methodius (9th century), devised and spread the Cyrilic alphabet

Stefan Stambolov (1854–1895), successful Prime Minister

Ivan Vazov (1850–1921), national writer

Saint Paisius of Hilendar (1722–1773), wrote Istoriya Slavyanobolgarskaya, Slavic History of Buglaria.

Saint Ivan of Rila (Bulgarian: Свети преподобни Йоан Рилски Чудотворец, Svеti prеpodobni Yoan Rilski Chudotvorеts; English: Saint (monk) John Of Rila Wondermaker) (876 – c. 946) was the first Bulgarian hermit. He was revered as a saint while he was still alive. The legend surrounding him tells of wild animals that freely came up to him and birds that landed in his hands. His followers founded many churches in his honor, including the famous Rila Monastery. One of these churches, "St Ivan Rilski" was only discovered in 2008 in the town of Veliko Tarnovo. Today, he is honored as the patron saint of the Bulgarians and as one of the most important saints in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

Elin Pelin (Bulgarian: Елин Пелин ) (8 July 1877 – 3 December 1949), born Dimitar Ivanov Stoyanov (Bulgarian: Димитър Иванов Стоянов) is arguably considered Bulgaria’s best narrator of country life.

Born into a large family in the village of Bailovo near Sofia, he loved writing and reading from an early age. Studying to become a teacher, he taught for a year in 1895 in his native village. He was first published in 1901, and the respect it earned him in literary circles encouraged him to go to Sofia in 1903, where he worked as a librarian at the university library. It was during this period he took his now-famous pseudonym from the word pelin, which means wormwood in Bulgarian. He spent 1906–07 in France, perfecting his skills in the language. By this time, he was already a popular writer.

Between 1910 and 1916, he was the director of special collections at the National Library and also served as editor of numerous magazines, including the children's publication Veselushka. Additionally, he served as a war correspondent during World War I.

In 1911, one of his most famous works appeared, The Gerak Family (Bulgarian: Geratsite). It is one of the best-known pieces of Bulgarian literature and deals with a traditional village family experiencing the transition from the simplicity of rurality to the modernization of Bulgarian society, a world in which old time practices founded on family love and dedication to the land start to disappear. His second great work, Earth (Bulgarian: Zemya), was published in 1922. In this book, Pelin created a gallery of characters who identified with the national character and conscience.

Pelin's works—poems, short stories and novels—recreated the peasant and countryside atmosphere of the old Bulgaria. His predilection for short stories led him to write many, of which the humouristic Pizho and Penda is perhaps the best known. A genuine realism, with descriptions full of light and color, classify his works. Considered one of the masters of Bulgarian prose, he was also one of the initiators of Bulgarian children's literature. His tales of Yan Bibiyan and his voyages to the moon still delight today.

From 1924 until 1944, Pelin served as conservator at the Ivan Vazov Museum, all the while continuing to write, mostly for children, and be published. In 1940, he was named president of the Union of Bulgarian Writers.

After the War, he managed to escape being blacklisted as a forbidden author by the Communist government of the People's Republic of Bulgaria.

Zahariy Hristovich Dimitrov (Bulgarian: Захарий Христович Димитров) (1810–1853), better known as Zahari Zograf (or Zahariy Zograf; Захари(й) Зограф) is a famous Bulgarian painter of the Bulgarian National Revival, noted for his church mural paintings and icons and often regarded as the founder of secular art in Bulgaria due to the introduction of everyday life elements in his work.

Zahari Zograf was born in the town of Samokov in 1810 and was taught by his brother Dimitar Zograf, with whom he later worked together, as his father died early. A spiritual student of Neophyte of Rila since 1827, he became an equal partner of his brother at the age of 21 in 1831, i.e. he was proclaimed a master.

His best known icons are those of the St. St. Constantine and Helena Church in Plovdiv, the Church of the Theotokos in Koprivshtitsa, as well as a number of monasteries. Zahari Zograf's best known frescoes are those in the main church of the Rila Monastery, in the chapel and the St Nicholas church of the Bachkovo Monastery, the Troyan Monastery and the Monastery of the Transfiguration. He painted three mural portraits of himself in the latter three, a move that was regarded as controversial during the time.

Zahari Zograf lived and worked on Mount Athos between 1851 and 1852, where he decorated the outer narthex of the Great Lavra. He also did several church donor portraits in his later years, also leaving a large number of unrealized sketches after his death from typhus on 14 June 1853.

Krakra of Pernik (Bulgarian: Кракра Пернишки, Krakra Pernishki), also known as Krakra Voevoda or simply Krakra, was an 11th-century feudal lord in the First Bulgarian Empire whose domain encompassed 36 fortresses in what is today southwestern Bulgaria, with his capital at Pernik. He is known for heroically resisting Byzantine sieges on multiple occasions as the Byzantines overran the Bulgarian Empire.

Krakra was a "man remarkable in military affairs" and a high-ranking bolyarin, possibly governor of the Sredets comitatus, under the Tsars Samuil, Gavril Radomir and Ivan Vladislav. His name appears in the historical annals in connection to a Byzantine military campaign in the Bulgarian lands in 1003, when Samuil's army was crushed at the Vardar and the Byzantines captured Skopje. As Basil II's forces headed to seize Sredets, however, in 1004 they came up against Krakra's well-defended fortress of Pernik and the emperor was forced to return to Constantinople after sustaining heavy losses.

In 1016, another campaign by Basil II was stopped by Krakra at Pernik after an unsuccessful 88-day Byzantine siege. As the Byzantine-Bulgarian conflict continued, Krakra and Ivan Vladislav looked for Pecheneg support for a large-scale Bulgarian campaign against the Byzantines and initially persuaded the Pechenegs to collaborate in the winter of 1016–1017. However, the Byzantine governor of Dorystolon learned about the plan and notified Basil II. Upon hearing this, the Pechenegs declined to take part, effectively ruining the Bulgarian plans.

Following the death of Ivan Vladislav at Dyrrhachium in early 1018, Basil II entered the Bulgarian territory in March 1018 without meeting any resistance. At Adrianople, Krakra and 35 other bolyari's envoys met with him and after negotiating generous concessions from Basil II, including creating Theme Bulgaria and a separate Bulgarian archbishop chose to join the Eastern Roman Empire. Basil II met with Krakra personally in Serres and awarded him the title of Patrikios.