site.bta170th Birth Anniversary of Konstantin Jirecek, Author of First Scientific Summary of Bulgarian History

Wednesday marks the 170th anniversary of the Vienna-born Czech historian, Slavic scholar, bibliographer and honorary member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Konstantin Jirecek, author of the first scientific summary of Bulgarian history. "We, the able, led by the ignorant, do the impossible for the good of the ungrateful. And we have done so much, with so little, in so short a time, that we have taught ourselves to make anything out of nothing," he said in 1881 in his Bulgarian Diary (1930-1932).

In 1879-1884 Konstantin Jirecek lived in Bulgaria and took an active part in the cultural life of the country. He was Secretary General of the Ministry of National Education (1879-1881), Minister of National Education (1881-1882), Chairman of the Board of Studies at the Ministry (1882-1884) and Director of the Bulgarian National Library (today the National Library Sts. Cyril and Methodius) in Sofia (1884).

On May 24, 1881, at a celebration in the National Assembly on the occasion of the Day of Slavonic Literature, the Minister of Education Konstantin Jirecek took the floor on behalf of "all Slavs": "Every childhood knows that 1,000 years ago the first teachers of the homogeneous and monolingual fraternal Bulgarian people came to us. Christianity and the beginnings of civilization were brought to us from Bulgaria. The Slavic people will never forget that Bulgarian literature is the oldest Slavic script."

Jirecek's scientific work has contributed to the creation of a comprehensive and thorough view of the historical development of the Balkan peoples. His works on Bulgarian history will long remain the only major studies in which his extensive knowledge and critical-analytical view of the available sources and scientific literature are evident.

"The History of the Bulgarians” (Prague, 1876) was published simultaneously in Czech and German, and in Russian in 1878, undergoing several Bulgarian editions (1886, 1888, 1929). It was the first scientific exposition of Bulgarian history. It covers the period from antiquity to 1875, but Jirecek continued to work on the subject until his death. A separate volume, History of the Bulgarians (1939, posthumously), published his many notes, additions, and new material.

In memory of Konstantin Jirecek and his work, several villages, a peak in the Eastern Rila, Musala Ridge, 2852 m high, and the sea promontory of Smith Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, bear his name.

He also appears as a minor character in Aleko Konstantinov's work Bai Ganyo, where Bai Ganyo visits him in Prague hoping to find shelter with him.