Bakalov, Georgi Ivanov

Born Nov. 27, 1873, in Stara-Zagora; died July 14, 1939. Bulgarian literary critic, publicist, historian, and advocate of Marxism.

In 1891, Bakalov joined the Bulgarian Social Democratic Party. While studying in Geneva (1891–93), he became close to the Liberation of Labor group. On his return to Bulgaria he became active in the workers’ movement. He was a delegate to the London (1896) and Amsterdam (1904) congresses of the Second International. From 1903 to 1905 he was a member of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Workers’ Social Democratic Party (Narrow Socialists), or BWSDP (NS). In 1905, when he was the head of a group of so-called anarchist-liberals, he withdrew from the BWSDP(NS). Persecuted by the fascist government of A. Tsankov, Bakalov lived in exile in France and the USSR from 1925 to 1932. In 1932 he was elected for his scientific and literary critical work as a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. After returning to his homeland in 1932, he edited progressive magazines. He was the author of a series of works on the history of the Bulgarian renaissance, and he propagandized Marxist aesthetics and Russian scientific and social thought. His most important works are Ivan Vazov and Socialism (1909), Bulgarian Literature and Socialism (1911), Conversations on Art (1924), Khristo Smirnenski (1925), and From Pushkin to Smirnenski (1937).