Professor Marin Drinov

Marin Drinov was born in 1838 in the town of Panagyurishte. He was Bulgarian Revival historian and philologist. He studied history and philology in Kiev and Moscow. Later, from 1865 to 1871, he travelled and worked in Austria and Italy. In 1877 he left for Bulgaria with the Russian army. After the Liberation in 1878 he became Minister of Public Education in the Temporary Russian Government in the Principality of Bulgaria at the invitation of the special Russian commissioner to Bulgaria Prince Dondukov-Korsakov, who highly appreciated his accomplishment and lore. As minister Marin Drinov contributed much to improve the level of education in Bulgaria. He worked for the establishment of the Bulgarian Constitution and for the arrangement of the Church’s affairs. Besides, thanks to him Sofia was elected capital of Bulgaria, but not Veliko Tarnovo, as Austria insisted. In 1869 Marin Drinov became one of the founders of the Bulgarian Learned Society, now Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Marin Drinov is one of the founders of the Bulgarian historiography. His works “Historical Review of the Bulgarian church from the beginning until the present day”, “The population of the Balkan Peninsula by the Slavs”, and “The southern Slavs and Byzantium in the tenth century” have been translated and are well-known in all Slav countries. After 1881 Marin Drinov lived in Kharkov, Ukraine, where he died on February 28, 1906.