Naiden Dobrovich Gerov

(pseudonym, N. Mushek). Born Feb. 23, 1823, in Koprivshtitsa; died Oct. 9, 1900, in Plovdiv. Bulgarian social and political figure, philologist, and poet.

Gerov was educated in Russia from 1841 to 1845 and became a Russian citizen. He was Russian vice-consul in Plovdiv from 1857 to 1877. He had ties with the Slavic committees in Russia. Holding the positions of the Bulgarian bourgeois circles, he came out in support of the Bulgarian national liberation movement. During the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78 he participated in the Russian provisional administration of Bulgaria and later became governor of the city of Svishtov. He was the author of the first Bulgarian narrative poem, Stoian i Rada (1845).