Drinov, Marin Stoianov

Born Oct. 20, 1838, in Panagiurishte; died Feb. 28 (Mar. 13), 1906, in Kharkov. Bulgarian and Russian historian and specialist in Slavic studies.

The son of an artisan, Drinov studied at the South Slav Boarding School in Kiev and graduated from Moscow University in 1865. Between 1865 and 1870 he worked in various European libraries, archives, and museums. Drinov was one of the founders (1869) and the first president of the Bulgarian Society of Supporters of Science, which became the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia in 1911, and he was the founder of the Society of History and Philology in Kharkov. He became a professor at the University of Kharkov in 1873.

After the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, Drinov joined the provisional Russian administration in Bulgaria. At his suggestion Sofia was proclaimed the capital of the Principality of Bulgaria. From 1878 to 1879, Drinov was the head of the Department of Public Education and Spiritual Affairs. He placed education in Bulgaria on democratic foundations, establishing a three-level system of public schools with free instruction and stipends for poor students. In 1898 he became a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

Drinov’s works, which dealt with the settlement of the Balkan Peninsula by the Slavs, Byzantine-Slav relations, the history of the Okhrida archbishopric, and other questions, were based on a wealth of factual material and a critical approach to sources. They laid the foundation for Bulgarian historical science.