Todor Vlaikov

(pseudonym, Veselin). Born Feb. 13, 1865, in Pirdop; died Apr. 28, 1943, in Sofia. Bulgarian writer and public figure.

Vlaikov studied at Moscow University (1885-88), where he was attracted by the pedagogical ideas of L. N. Tolstoy and the Narodniks (Populists). He became a schoolteacher. Vlaikov was one of the founders of the Radical Party, and he edited the journal Demokraticheski pregled (1901-26). His best novellas and stories were written in the 1880’s and 1890’s, including Old Slavcho’s Granddaughter (1889), Aunt Gena (1891), The Farmhand (1892), and Schoolteacher Milenkov (1894). In these works Vlaikov realistically depicted the life of the Bulgarian peasantry. He also wrote the memoirs Stages in the Life of a Writer and Public Figure (1935) and What I Have Lived Through (vols. 1-3, 1934-42).