Vera Mutafchieva (; March 28, 1929 – June 9, 2009) 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 writer and historian.

Biography

Vera Mutafchieva was born 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 ...

, March 28, 1929. Her parents were the historian prof. Petar Mutafchiev and Nadia Triphonova. Mutafchieva was educated at

Sofia University Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" () is a public university, public research university in Sofia, Bulgaria. It is the oldest institution of higher education in Bulgaria. Founded on 1 October 1888, the edifice of the university was constr ...

. She obtained her PhD (1958) and DSci (1978) degrees at the

Bulgarian Academy of Sciences The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (abbreviated BAS; , ''Bŭlgarska akademiya na naukite'', abbreviated БАН) is the National Academy of Bulgaria, established in 1869. The Academy, with headquarters in Sofia, is autonomous and consists of a S ...

(BAS) in Sofia. She was a senior researcher at various institutes of the BAS (Institute of History; Institute of Balkan Studies; Institute of Demographic Studies; Institute of Literature), and was elected vice-president of BAS (1993-1996). In 2004 she was elected a member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Her research focused on the Ottoman period on which she published dozens of studies in Bulgarian and European journals. Some of her monographs were published in the USA, Turkey, and Greece. Mutafchieva is the author of historical novels which have been translated into 11 languages. She was also the scriptwriter of the 1981 film '' Khan Asparuh'' (4th most viewed movie in Bulgaria of all time and official submission of Bulgaria for the 'Best Foreign Language Film' category of the 55th Academy Awards in 1983; international title ''681 AD: The Glory of Khan'' ) and of two other films on contemporary subjects, as well as of "The Road", a drama on the second Bulgarian Kingdom. From 1997 to 1998, Mutafchieva was head of the State Agency for Bulgarians Abroad. In 2008, it was revealed that she had collaborated with the secret police in communist Bulgaria. However, she is also known for her defence of women's rights in Bulgaria. Mutafchieva died at the Lozenetz Hospital in Sofia at the age of 80. Her ashes were scattered in the

Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans and Anatolia, and covers an area of some . In the north, the Aegean is connected to the Marmara Sea, which in turn con ...

near the Cape

Sounion Cape Sounion (Modern Greek: Aκρωτήριο Σούνιο ''Akrotírio Soúnio'' ; ''Άkron Soúnion'', latinized ''Sunium''; Venetian: ''Capo Colonne'' "Cape of Columns") is the promontory at the southernmost tip of the Attica peninsula, ...

Awards

Mutafchieva was awarded with numerous national prizes and with the International

Herder Prize The Herder Prize (), named after the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), was a prestigious international prize awarded every year from 1964 to 2006 to scholars and artists from Central and Southeast Europe whose life and wor ...

(1980).

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mutafchieva, Vera 1929 births 2009 deaths 20th-century Bulgarian novelists Bulgarian biographers Women biographers Bulgarian historical fiction writers Bulgarian memoirists Bulgarian women historians Bulgarian women novelists Herder Prize recipients 20th-century memoirists