Georgi Dzhagarov (; 14 July 1925 in Byala,

Sliven Province Sliven Province (, former name Sliven okrug) is a province in southeastern Bulgaria, named after its administrative and industrial centre—the city of Sliven. It has a territory of

– 30 November 1995 in

Sofia Sofia is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain, in the western part of the country. The city is built west of the Is ...

) was a

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

n playwright, poet, politician, and former chairman of the Bulgarian Writers Association. He also served as vice-president of the Bulgarian State Council for eighteen years.

Biography

After completing his primary education in 1940, he became a member of the Workers Youth League, and from 1944 – of the Bulgarian communist party. While still a student, he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for anti-fascist activities, and was released after the Communist coup d'état. In 1951 he graduated

Maxim Gorky Literary Institute The Maxim Gorky Literature Institute () is an institution of higher education in Moscow, Russia. It is located at 25 Tverskoy Boulevard in central Moscow. History The institute was founded in 1933 on the initiative of Maxim Gorky, a writer, foun ...

in Moscow. Upon returning to Bulgaria, he became an editor at the '' Literary Front'' weekly, and was a playwright for the Youth Theater. From 1966 to 1972, he was Chairman of the Union of Bulgarian Writers. During the years of the

Todor Zhivkov Todor Hristov Zhivkov ( ; 7 September 1911 – 5 August 1998) was a Bulgarians, Bulgarian communist statesman who served as the ''de facto'' leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB) from 1954 until 1989 as General Secretary of the Cen ...

dictatorship, he served as an informal confidant and was a member of a group of Zhivkov's associates, known as the "hunting companions". From 1971 to 1986, he was in charge of the "Council for Development of the Spiritual Values of Society" in the State Council. In 1985 he was head of the Bulgarian delegation to visit Pope John Paul II in the Vatican. He died of cancer at the military hospital in Sofia. In 2004 the Union of Bulgarian Writers has established an award for poetry, named after him.Bio data at Literature World
(in Bulgarian) One of his most famous plays is ''The Public Prosecutor'', which was adapted into English C. P. Snow. It was first performed in 1964 at the Third National Review of the Bulgarian Theatre. The English adaptation was produced in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

at the

Hampstead Theatre Hampstead Theatre is a theatre in South Hampstead, in the London Borough of Camden. It specialises in commissioning and producing new writing, supporting and developing the work of new writers. History The original ''Hampstead Theatre Clu ...

in 1967.

References

1925 births 1995 deaths Bulgarian male writers {{Bulgaria-writer-stub