135 ГОДИНИ ОТ РОЖДЕНИЕТО НА ПРОФ. Д-Р МИЛКО БАЛАН - ЛЕКАРЯТ, АНАТОМЪТ, АНТРОПОЛОГЪТ, ДОСТОЕН НАСЛЕДНИК НА РОДА БАЛАН
135 YEARS SINCE THE BIRTH OF PROF. DR. MILKO BALAN – THE PHYSICIAN, ANATOMIST, ANTHROPOLOGIST, AND DISTINGUISHED HEIR OF THE BALAN FAMILY

Summary/Abstract: The first part of the article presents the Balan family, whose origins trace back to refugees from the Sliven region who resettled in Bolgrad during the Russo-Turkish War (1828–1829). Its members have left a lasting mark on the socio-political and academic life of free Bulgaria: Alexander, an academician, prominent linguist, dialectologist, historian, and bibliographer, was the founder and served three terms as Rector of Sofia University and one term as Dean of the Faculty of History and Philology; Georgy, an “Infantry General,” took part in the Balkan Wars, the Second Balkan War, and the First World War; Martin, a jurist and mayor of Sofia, transformed the city center by overseeing the construction of new landmark public buildings and paving the area with new ceramic, aesthetically pleasing yellow cobblestones; Atanas, one of the first professors at the Faculty of Medicine of Sofia University, served as its Dean; Mihail, a mechanical engineer who graduated in “Thermal Engineering” in Vienna, contributed to the heating infrastructure of Sofia and to the founding of the Higher Technical School in 1941. The second part is dedicated to Prof. Milko Balan (1888–1973), the son of Academician Alexander Balan. He graduated in medicine in Vienna in 1912 and took part in the Balkan Wars and the First World War. As the first assistant in the Department of Anatomy at the newly founded Faculty of Medicine in Sofia, he contributed to the organisation of teaching activities and the establishment of an anatomical museum. He specialised in anatomy and anthropology in Vienna as a Rockefeller Fellow (1924–1926), after which he conducted fascinating anthropological studies on the Bulgarian skeleton (femur), Bulgarian skulls, and others, documented in his scientific publications. He was appointed Associate Professor of Anatomy in 1945 and promoted to Full Professor in 1949. A beloved lecturer of generations of medical and dental students, he was also the author of textbooks. Prof. Milko Balan was the first fully trained paleoanthropologist in Bulgaria, who played a key role in preparing future generations of specialists. Thanks to his involvement in field and laboratory research, the bones from several of the most intriguing archaeological sites in Bulgarian lands have been preserved: the Early Bulgarian mass grave near the town of Devnya, the Varna Chalcolithic Necropolis, and Early Chalcolithic graves near the town of Varna. Prof. Milko Balan was one of the founders of the Anthropology Section at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, with which he maintained a creative collaboration until the end of his life.

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