Archive Funds

Malcho Nikolov Malchev was born on October 26, 1883 in the village of Zaraevo, Popovo region. He graduated from primary school in his native village and junior high school in Popovo. He received his high school education in Razgrad in 1903. Then he taught in his native and other villages in the Razgrad region. In 1908 he became a student of Slavic Philology at Sofia University. There he listened to lectures by a teaching team of folklorists, culturologists, philologists and historians - one of the most famous Bulgarian intellectuals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Among them are Dr. Krastyo Krastev, professors Mihail Arnaudov, Alexander Balabanov, Boyan Penev, Vasil Zlatarski and Ivan Shishmanov. Malcho Nikolov spent the academic year 1911-1912 at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. His education was interrupted in 1912, when he participated in the Balkan Wars as a reserve officer. He proved himself as a capable front-line commander, for which he was awarded many times for bravery. He completed his education only after the demobilization in 1913.

In the short interwar period Malcho Nikolov practiced his teaching profession in various villages in the Razgrad region. His teaching was interrupted again in 1916, when he was mobilized and participated in the First World War as a front-line platoon commander with the rank of captain from the reserve.

In the period immediately after his demobilization, in 1919-1920, Nikolov was a high school teacher in Razgrad. He was subsequently appointed deputy head of a department in the Ministry of National Education and settled with his family in the capital. In Sofia he, in addition to being head of a department in the Ministry of Education, was also a teacher of Bulgarian Language and Literature at various high schools in Sofia. After his qualities were noticed, he was sent on a one-year specialization in Vienna, Munich and Paris in order to get acquainted with European educational practices. In 1934-1935 he was the Director of the Second Sofia Girls' High School. Twice, in the period 1928-1933 and 1933-1935, he was Chief Inspector of the Bulgarian Language at the Ministry of National Education.

In addition to being a teacher and senior official at the Ministry of Education, Malcho Nikolov was also a literary critic and historian, author of numerous studies on literary topics and an active contributor to Zlatorog magazine. He began publishing his analyzes and critiques at the end of the First World War. He is also the editor-in-chief of the high school magazine Bulgarska Rech, which he created and published in the period 1928-1943. Among his most significant works are Yavorov's Lyric Poetry from 1921, Literary Characteristics of Bulgarian Writers from Botev to Debelyanov from 1927, Literary Characteristics and Parallels from 1928, From the Treasures of Our Poetry. Interpreted Songs and Stories from 1937, History of Bulgarian Literature from Petko Slaveykov to the Present Day from 1941. M. Nikolov pays special attention to Vazov, Botev, Yavorov, Yovkov and Slaveykov, to whom he dedicates independent research.

Until the communist coup of September 9, 1944, Malcho Nikolov was part of the Bulgarian intellectual elite and was considered one of the influential literary critics. The large-scale political and social changes in the period 1944-1948 put him outside the narrow (literary) dogmas of the new totalitarian government and he found himself in a special situation - without being publicly denied, his name gradually disappeared from public space, and his books and articles were seized from public libraries. However, M. Nikolov remained a member of the Union of Bulgarian Writers and even managed to publish two major works - From Teodor Trayanov to Nikola Vaptsarov. Literary Characteristics in 1947, and On the Tops of Russian Literature in 1961. Then he published his biographical memoirs under the title Life and Literary Memories in 1962.

In July 2017, Malcho Nikolov's granddaughters Raina Yancheva and Anka Nikolova donated to New Bulgarian University his personal documents and manuscripts, valuable family and business correspondence, photographs, many rare books with dedications by their authors to their grandfather. Malcho Nikolov's personal archive fund, stored in the University Archives, contains many interesting documents of biographical, official and creative nature, personal and official correspondence, photographs, which sealed not only the life of M. Nikolov, but also the spirit and way of life in which lives.

The oldest document in the archives of M. Nikolov dates from 1891 and is a letter of recommendation signed by M. Nikolov's grandfather Nikola Malchev Sapundzhiev.

Another interesting point from M. Nikolov's personal archive fund is the correspondence between him and the figures of literature, literary theory and criticism, and culture in general in Bulgaria - Vladimir Vasilev, Boyan Penev, Asen Raztsvetnikov, Stoyan Zagorchinov, Mihail Kremen, Nikolay Raynov. Also of interest is the correspondence and personal portrait signed by the Russian writer and poet, Nobel Laureate in Literature in 1933, Ivan Bunin.

There are also "non-professional writers" with whom M. Nikolov corresponded. Among them are Lubomir Vladikin - a legal theorist and constitutionalist, one of the most important Bulgarian lawyers of the Interwar period. Another interesting correspondent, with his unconventional life, is the historian, theologian and archivist Misho Dragalevski, or Mihail Kovachev, of the prominent Kovachev family, who gave Bulgaria several national revolutionaries, academics, politicians and officers.

The official documents stored in the University Archives make it possible to trace the professional life of M. Nikolov, starting from the beginning of his career as a teacher in 1903, illustrating the whole period of primary, lower secondary and high school teacher in the country and the capital, Deputy Chief and high official in the Ministry of Public Education, to reach the period of Chief Inspector of Bulgarian Language (the highest post he held in his career), and to his retirement in 1937.

On June 4, 2019, a selected part of personal correspondence between Malcho Nikolov and his wife Raina Malcho Nikolova, stored in the University Archive of NBU, was presented and commented. The selected correspondence was exchanged between him and his wife in the period 1924-1925, when he was sent to Vienna, Munich and Paris to get acquainted with the educational practices there. The correspondence is interesting in that it reflects the sincere impressions of a Bulgarian interwar intellectual sent to the heart of Europe. You can find a video of the event here.

Malcho Nikolov. A short portrait (in Bulgarian Language).