Archive Funds

Tseko Torbov and Valentina Topuzova-Torbova

Tseko Torbov was born on 2/15 April 1899 in Oryahovo. He completed his primary and secondary education in his hometown and in Pleven. In 1919 he enrolled to study law at the University of Sofia, but remained there only for the first semester, in 1920 he went to Germany, where he continued his studies as a lawyer, first at Berlin and later at the University of Göttingen. He graduated from the University of Göttingen in 1923 with a doctorate in law. In the fall of that year, he returned to Bulgaria, where he was engaged in legal, translation and publishing activities. In absentia, through letters, he meets the famous German philosopher Leonard Nelson, who invites him to join his collaborators. In 1925 this became a fact - Torbov joined the Nelson Society in Göttingen. His residence in Germany is associated with active participation in the activities of the Nelson-based Academy of Philosophy and Politics, as well as with systematic pursuits of philosophy. In 1929, after defending his second doctorate at the University of Göttingen, this time in philosophy, Tseko Torbov returned to his homeland and settled in Sofia. He began working as a teacher - initially at the German School, a little later at the Italian Royal High School, where he remained until 1944. 1942 marked his official entry into the university community - then he was elected Associate Professor of general theory and philosophy of law at the Sofia University. Three years later he became a Full Professor. In the academic year 1947/1948 he was Dean of the Faculty of Law at Sofia University, and in the period 1950-1956 he held the position of Deputy Dean of the same Faculty. In 1948 he retired from his professorship in philosophy and theory of law and remained in the German language classes at the Faculty of Law. He retired in 1963.

From 1956 Tseko Torbov began to translate the main works of Immanuel Kant - a work that would end in 1980 with the publication of "Criticism of Judgment." In 1970 he was honored with the Herder Prize of the University of Vienna for his outstanding translation achievements.
He died in Sofia on June 8, 1987.
 
Valentina Ilieva Topuzova-Torbova was born in Kyustendil on May 13, 1918. She received her high school education in Sofia, at the Italian Royal High School, where Tseko Torbov taught German. She continued her education at the University of Sofia and in 1945 graduated German Philology (second major - Italian Philology, third - philosophy, unfinished). From 1945 to 1964 she was a full-time German high school teacher in Sofia. At the same time, she was a part-time lecturer in Italian at the State Polytechnic (1950-1954) and at the Bulgarian State Conservatory (1968-1973) in Sofia. Since 1956 she has been systematically engaged in translation activities. She worked with Prof. Ts. Torbov (whom she married in 1962) mainly on translations of works from German classical philosophy. Among her more significant translations are: "Prolegomena to any future metaphysics that can be presented as a science" (1969), "Fundamentals of metaphysics of morals" (1974) and "Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view" (1992) To them. Kant, Schiller - Aesthetics (1981), The Tragic Art (1983) and The Exalted (1983). In 1982 she was awarded by the Union of Translators in Bulgaria for translating Aesthetics into Friedrich Schiller. In 1991, the Bulgarian Kantian Society was established, of which she became the Honorary Chairman.
She died in Sofia on July 30, 2008.
 
In 2004, Valentina Topuzova-Torbova donated to the NBU the archive of Prof. Tseko Torbov, and after her death in 2008, her archive entered the University Archive - donated by her nephew Mr. Ilia Rusev. Initially, a personal fund under No. 12 "Tseko Torbov" was formed from the personal archive of Prof. Tseko Torbov, but the volume of documents related to the life and activity of Valentina Topuzova-Torbova gives all grounds to be transformed into the "Torbov Family Fund".

As more interesting than the biographical materials of Prof. Tseko Torbov we can mention the memories he wrote of his early years in Oryahovo, fragments of diary notes, and the undisputed emphasis in this section - the "Herder Prize". His wife's biographical documents also include diaries, prizes and certificates.

Undoubtedly the most important part of the archival heritage of the renowned Bulgarian philosopher of law is the manuscripts of his works - authors and translations. Not only his well-known works are present here - the monographs "The Basic Principle of Law. Law and Justice", "Natural Law and the Philosophy of Law", "History and Theory of Law", "Foundations of the Philosophy of History", translations of the three "Critics" of Immanuel Kant and some of the more important works of Leonard Nelson, The Memories of Leonard Nelson 1924–1929, War and Law, Mind and Science, Ethical Realism and Public Life, and many more, but also a number of unpublished and unknown or little-known works. In the second part of the fund - Valentina Topuzova-Torbova's documents - we can also find various "proofs" of her creative activity: from the earliest translations and student articles in "Enlightenment Unity", "Student Lift", "School Review", Literary Voice, etc. to the translations of Schiller and Kant, with which he affirmed his independent contribution as a translator.
Equally curious is the section "Documents from the public and official activity" in the archive of Tseko Torbov - among the submitted materials are evidence of his life participation in the work of his teacher Leonard Nelson, founded by his teacher, as well as of the active his social and pedagogical activity at the Italian High School in Sofia. The minutes of the meetings of the Philosophical and Sociological Society, whose longtime secretary is Tseko Torbov, are valuable sources of information about the scientific life in Bulgaria in the first half of the twentieth century. To the analogous part in the archive of Valentina Topuzova-Torbova (so far) mainly her reports on closely pedagogical topics.

An essential component of Prof. Torbov's documentary heritage is his correspondence, scientific and personal, which is likely to reveal important details about his creative contacts with a number of big names in world philosophical and legal thought. We have such hopes in the correspondence in the archive of Valentina Topuzova-Torbova.
Of particular value are the illustrative materials in Torbov's stock (photographs - his and his and his relatives', drawings, cards, etc.). Far more modest is their volume in his wife's archives.
 
Official website (in Bulgarian) of Prof. Tseko Torbov and Valentina Topuzova-Torbova