Podcast in English
Text size
Bulgarian National Radio © 2024 All Rights Reserved

Bulgaria marks 165 years since the birth of prominent linguist Aleksandar Balan

Aleksandar Balan (1859-1959)
Photo: bulgarianhistory.org

October 27 marks the 165th anniversary of the birth of Academician Aleksandar Teodorov-Balan, who was the first theorist of the Bulgarian literary language, phonetics and grammar. 

He was born was born in 1859 in the village of Kubey, Bessarabia. His father, Stoyan Balan, was from a big family in Sliven. His mother Maria Grekova was the daughter of Panayot Grekov, defender of the Bulgarian language in Bessarabia and sister of the Bulgarian politician and lawyer Dimitar Grekov. 

A graduate of the Bolgrad High School, he studied Slavic and Czech philology at the Charles University in Prague. In Leipzig, he studied Greek, Latin and German. In Prague, he defended his doctorate on the topic "On the sound "ь" in the modern Bulgarian language". 

In 1889, Balan was elected the first rector of the Higher School in Sofia - today Sofia University, and from 1945 he was an academician. 

He is the author of over 900 articles, reports, studies and books. 

He died on February 12, 1959 at the age of 99. 



Последвайте ни и в Google News Showcase, за да научите най-важното от деня!
Listen to the daily news from Bulgaria presented in "Bulgaria Today" podcast, available in Spotify.

More from category

A fully preserved statue from the 2nd-3rd century was discovered in Odessos

A unique statue from the Roman period of Odessos, preliminarily dated to the late 2nd to the first half of the 3rd century, has been discovered during excavation works near the train station in Varna, said archaeologists from the Varna Regional..

published on 10/15/24 6:10 PM
Engineer Katya Stoyanova, head of the

The municipality of Petrich awarded for the promotion of Heraclea Sintica

Petrich municipality has received an award for original promotion of the tourist destination Heraclea Sintica , Katya Stoyanova, head of the "Restoration, conservation and socialization of Heraclea Sintica" project, said this for BTA.  The award..

published on 10/15/24 2:23 PM
Photo: National Museum of Natural History of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Paleontologists find more than 30 animal fossils from the time of the dinosaurs near Trun

What was the animal world like in the region of what is today the town of Trun more than 80 million years ago – that is the question paleontologists from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences’ National Museum of Natural History have been trying to answer...

published on 10/6/24 6:35 AM