Jirecek, Konstantin Josef

Born July 24, 1854, in Vienna; died there Jan. 10, 1918. Czech historian.

Jirečka graduated from the University of Prague in 1877. He worked in Bulgaria as secretary of the Ministry of Public Education (1879–81) and as minister of public education and president of the Council on Educational Affairs (1881–84). He was a professor at the University of Prague from 1884 to 1893, and after 1893, professor at the University of Vienna.

Jireček’s dissertation, “The History of Bulgaria” (1876), was the first work to give a broad view of the historical development of Bulgaria from ancient times until 1875. Jireček is the author of many works on the history of the Southern Slavs. They are written from a positivist perspective and are valuable in the critical treatment of the questions they pose.