site.btaStoyan Vatralsky: First Bulgarian Harvard Graduate Also Authors Bacalaureate Hymn

Stoyan Vatralsky (1860-1935) was the first Bulgarian to graduate from Harvard University. He was also the author of its baccalaureate hymn under the sounds of which, performed by a choir of 400 students, the university alumni receive their diplomas to this day.

The son of a shepherd from the village of Vakarel, Vatralsky went to school with the help of Protestant missionaries at a school in Samokov and then, again with their support, was sent to Harvard as a promising student.

Vatralsky left for the United States in 1884. In 1888 he became a student at Harvard University. Shortly before finishing his studies, he won a university-based contest for hymn composition.

After returning to Bulgaria in 1900, Stoyan Vatralsky was actively involved in the social and political life of the country.

He was a friend of national poet and writer Ivan Vazov, as well as other prominent cultural figures such as Stoyan Mihailovski and Prof. Ivan Shishmanov. 

Vatralsky was also one of the founders and a keen figure of the American lobby in this country and a supporter of the society of English-speaking Bulgarians. It was on his proposal that some of the streets in Sofia were named after people like the Buxton Brothers, William Gladstone, and Januarius McGahan.

The story of Stoyan Vatralsky had been rediscovered and revealed to Bulgaria by Professor Kostadin Grozev, who passed away on November 3, 2017.