Dako Dakovskii

Born Aug. 7, 1919, in the village of Tyrnak, Vratsa District; died Jan. 28, 1962, in Sophia. Bulgarian film director. Honored Artist of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria (1963, posthumously). Member of the Bulgarian Communist Party from 1942.

From 1938 to 1941, Dakovskii acted in the theaters of Sophia and Skoplje. During World War II (1939–45) he joined a partisan unit that operated as part of the resistance movement. From the end of the 1940’s to 1952, he lived and studied in the Soviet Union, where he graduated from the department of film directing of the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography. Returning to Bulgaria, he directed the feature film Under the Yoke (1952, after I. Vazv’s play of the same name; Dimitrov Prize, 1953). This film laid the foundation for the future development of the epic genre in Bulgarian film. Among the films he directed are Troubled Path, (1955; Dimitrov Prize, 1959), The Sedmaks’ Secret Supper (1957), The Linden Trees of Stubel (1960), and Kaloian (1962).