Georgi Parvanov, President of Bulgaria
| GEORGI PARVANOV Date of birth: 28 June 1957 Place of birth: Sirishnik, Pernik district Nationality: Bulgarian Marital status: Married, with two sons |
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1975: Finishes the Secondary School of Mathematics, Pernik
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1981: Graduates from the Faculty of History of the St Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia
Education:
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Qualifications and Scholarly Career:
- 1981: Joins the Institute of History of the Bulgarian Communist Party as a Research Associate
- 1988: Defends a doctoral thesis in history on "Dimiter Blagoev and the Bulgarian National Problem 1879-1917"a
- 1989: Senior Research Associate at the above institute. His scholarly interests focus on the Bulgarian national question and Bulgarian Social Democracy in its early period
- 1992-1996: Director of the Centre for History and Policy Studies with the Supreme Council (SC) of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP)
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Political Career:
- 1981-2001: Member of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP)
- 1991: Joins the BSP leadership at the 40th congress in December of the year when the BSP suffers its first loss in democratic elections. As member of the SC Executive Bureau at the time, Georgi Parvanov is directly responsible for the development of the ideological discussion and the preparation of new programme documents, which reflect the complex transformation of a party with a 100-year chequered history and its legitimation as an integral part of the European and world democratic Left
- 1994: Elected deputy chairman of the Supreme Council (SC) of the BSP at its 41st congress
- 1996: Heads the party, again amid a political crisis, when due to unsuccessful governance the BSP faces a dramatic fall from office. The 42nd extraordinary congress called in these circumstances in December 1996 elects Georgi Parvanov BSP Chairman. It is in this capacity that two months later he makes the difficult decision to cede power and head for early elections that will ease social tensions and open the way to national consensus and crisis resolution. As leader of the BSP, already in opposition, Parvanov manages to unite the Bulgarian Left, sets up the New Left and firmly puts it on course to the European social democratic values
- 1998 and 2000: Re-elected Chairman of the SC of the BSP at its 43rd and 44th congresses
- 1994-2001: MP of the 37th, 38th and 39th National Assemblies
- 1997-2001: Floor leader of the Parliamentary Group of the Democratic Left, then of the Parliamentary Group of the Coalition for Bulgaria in the National Assembly
- November 2001: Elected President of the Republic of Bulgaria. Inaugurated on January 22, 2002. As head of state he works actively for Bulgaria’s European and Euro-Atlantic prospects, for its worthy place in Europe and the world. In domestic policy, he has the ambition to bring out the social sensitivity of the institution, to endorse the language of political dialogue, to rally the parties and institutions around the country’s strategic goals
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Academic Achievements:
- Honorary Doctorate from Presov University, Baku University and Yerevan State University
- Holder of the Grand Gold Medal of Tomas Garrigue Masaryk University of Brno
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Published Works:
- Author of several monographs and books and of scores of articles, including “From Bouzloudja to the Korona Theatre. An Attempt at a New Reading of Pages from the BSP's Social Democratic Period (1995), "Bulgarian Social Democracy and the Macedonian Question from the Late 19th Century to 1918"(1997), etc
- His book “November 10: Before and After" is published in 2001.
