Gancho Savov

Gancho Savov (1930-2021), studied Slavic Language and Literature in Yugoslavia, Poland and Czechoslovakia and then worked as an editor of cultural affairs in various newspapers, as well as an academic at the Institute for Balkan Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAN). In 1974 he was accused by the Communist regime of high treason and of “ideological deviation” and sat in prison as a political detainee until 1985. He was socially isolated until 1989 and earned his living as an ordinary worker. It was only after the political change that he was completely rehabilitated and took up his work again as editor and academic at the Academy of Sciences. He was Honorary Professor at the Chair for Slavic Studies at the University of Veliko Trnovo. He worked as a writer and translator of numerous books from various Southern Slavic languages into Bulgarian – and vice versa. Gancho Savov received several awards for his work as writer and translator. He died in April 2021 in Sofia.