University Archive

Fund №2 Prof. Petar Mutafchiev and Prof. Vera Mutafchieva

Peter Mutafchiev was born on July 4, 1883 in the village of Bozhentsi. He studied in Gabrovo and Pleven and received high school diploma in Rousse in 1901. He worked as a primary teacher in various tiny villages in the Tarnovo Province, until 1906, when he enrolled as a student of history in Sofia University. He graduated from the Faculty of History and Linguistics in 1910 at Sofia University, after which he began working as a curator of the Medieval Department at the National Museum the same year. From 1911 to 1918 he took part in the Balkan, Inter-Allied and World War I successively. In 1920 he won a competition and went to a specialization in Byzantology in Munich, Germany. Upon his return to Bulgaria, he became a full professor in the history of Eastern Europe and Byzantium at the Sofia University. Since 1927 he has been an associate professor, and in 1937 he became a full professor and head of the Department of History of Eastern European Peoples at Sofia University. He held this post until his death in 1943. In the meantime, in the period 1936-37, he was Dean of the Faculty of History and Philology. From 1929 to 1937 he was a member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and from 1937 he was a full member of the Academy. He is a member of many scientific companies and organizations abroad as well. His scientific interests are focused on the history of the Byzantium Empire, the First and Second Bulgarian Empires and the history of the region of Dobrudzha. He is the author of a number of studies that are of high value today.

He died on May 2, 1943 in Sofia.

 

Vera Mutafchieva was born on March 28, 1929 in Sofia, in the family of Professor Peter Mutafchiev. In 1951 she graduated from the Faculty of History at the Sofia University (the same as her father) and was appointed as an assistant in the Oriental Department of the National Library in Sofia.

In 1958, she defended a PhD thesis on "Feudal Annuities in the Ottoman Empire, XV-XVI Centuries", which awarded her the scientific title of "Candidate of Historical Sciences" – equivalent to the PhD today – and in 1978 became a "Doctor of Historical Sciences".
Over the years Vera Mutafchieva worked at a number of institutes of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Institute of History (1958–1964 and 1992–1993), Institute of Balkan Studies, co-founded (1964–1979), Institute of Literature (1979–1991), Institute for Demography (1991-1992). She was the founder of the Center for Ancient Languages ​​and Cultures of the Committee on Culture in 1978 and its Director until 1980. She headed the Bulgarian Research Institute in Austria from 1980 to 1982. Vice-chairman of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in 1990-1993 she was Chairman of the Agency for Bulgarians Abroad (1997-1998), founder and chairman of the Publishing Board of the National Donor Fund "13 Centuries Bulgaria" (1999-2009) and member of the Management Board of the Fund (2005-2009). She is a member of the Union of Bulgarian Writers (1968-1994). In 1994 he became a founding member of the Association of Bulgarian Writers.
Vera Mutafchieva is an Ottoman historian, author of dozens of scientific, popular and artistic works. She has been honored with numerous national and international awards - the Gottfried von Herder International Award for Overall Creativity (1980), the Order of Cyril and Methodius (1989), the Panica Prize for Journalism ( 1994), Stara Planina Order (1999), Hristo G. Danov National Award for Contribution (2005) and many others. She received the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the Sofia University (1999) and New Bulgarian University (2000). In 2004 she was elected a member of the Assembly of Academics of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

She died on June 9, 2009 in Sofia.