Bulgarian Teachers and Scholars around the Liberation War Svetoslav Markov Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences smarkov@bio.bas.bg

       The biographies of the generation of Bulgarian teachers who lived and worked in the period before and after the Bulgarian Uprising of 1876 and the Russo-Turkish Liberation War (1877 – 1878) are very instructive. These biographies throw much light on the development of the education and science during the Bulgarian Revival and the establishment of the new Bulgarian state after five centuries of Ottoman occupation [1], [3]. Amazing are the efforts of the Bulgarian teachers in introducing European models, strategies, programs and structures in education [4-5]. Reviewing the activities of six Bulgarian teachers we attempt to describe and analyze the difficulties in the transition from Oriental to West-European culture in the Bulgarian society at that time. We are focusing on Bulgarian teachers and scholars in natural sciences (physics and mathematics) and languages who contributed substantially for the establishing of West-European educational programs and related textbooks and materials [2]. The names of the six teachers are: Ioakim Gruev, Ivan Gyuzelev, Todor Ikonomov, Georgi Ya. Kirkov, Nestor Marcoff and Todor N. Shishkov.