Professor Marin Stoyanov Drinov
(, known in Russia
as Марин Степанович Дринов) (1838 - 13 March 1906) was a Bulgarian
historian and philologist from the National Revival
period who lived and worked in Russia through most of his life. He was one of the originators of Bulgarian historiography and a founding member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
(then the Bulgarian Literary Society), as well as its first chairman.
Drinov was born in Panagyurishte
in 1838. He left for Russia in 1858 to continue his education. He studied history and philology in Kiev
and at the Moscow State University
, travelled and worked in Austria
between 1865 and 1871. In 1869, he became one of the co founders and an active member of the Bulgarian Literary Society. Drinov achieved a master's degree and became a reader of Slavistics
at Kharkiv University
, beginning to work as a regular professor in the end of 1876.
During the period of Russian government of Bulgaria (1878-1879) Drinov was Minister of Popular Enlightenment and Spiritual Affairs. Taking an active part in the organization of the newly liberated Bulgarian state, Marin Drinov is known as one of the authors of the Tarnovo Constitution
, the person to have proposed Sofia
instead of Tarnovo
(favoured by Austrian diplomats) for the new Bulgarian capital, and the person to have introduced the standardized 32-letter edition of Cyrillic
that was used in Bulgaria until the orthographic reform of 1945.
Drinov lived in......