TWENTIETH CENTURY BULGARIAN WRITERS AND INTELLECTUALS AT WORK IN LONDON

TWENTIETH CENTURY BULGARIAN WRITERS AND
INTELLECTUALS AT WORK IN LONDON
UCL SSEES and the Centre of Slavonic and East European Studies
have the honour of inviting you to the lecture of
Dr Ognyan Kovachev (Sofia University)
and the screening of “Silenced: Georgi Markov and the Umbrella Murder” (2012).
Q&A and reception will follow.

Thursday 5 June 2014, 18.00 – 20.30
University College London
The School of Slavonic and East European Studies
16 Taviton Street
Room 347

In the 20th century, London gave refuge and home to Bulgarian immigrants of various kind, writers, intellectuals, media and academic workers amongst them. Neither before nor after the advent of Communism in Bulgaria (1944-1946), did any of them come to public attention in the UK. Nevertheless, more than a few of them were able to integrate and pursue successful careers in the country, thus making considerable impact in their own sphere.
This presentation will focus on four case studies: the now almost completely forgotten writer Dikran Kouyoumdjian; Methodi Kousseff, who taught Bulgarian and defended his doctoral thesis at SSEES, and for decades was a central figure of the Bulgarian community, based in London; the diplomat, theatre director, filmmaker, art and literary critic, academic and BBC broadcaster Petar Uvaliev aka Pierre Rouve; and Georgi Markov – writer and broadcaster, victim of the notorious ‘Bulgarian umbrella’ murder. The aim is not to showcase their success stories but to outline the spiritual bridges between Bulgaria, Great Britain and Europe they created and maintained.

Ognyan Kovachev is Reader in Comparative Literature and Founding Co-Director of the “Cinema, Literature and Visual Culture” MA Programme at Sofia University “St. Kliment of Ohrid”. He is a member of the Association of Adaptation Studies and the Bulgarian Academic Circle of Comparative Literature, Visiting Research Fellow at Christ Church College, Oxford in 2007 and Fulbright Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia in 2011.
From 2009 to 2013 Dr Kovachev was Honorary Lecturer in Bulgarian Studies at UCL SSEES.