Educational Efforts of American Missionaries Among Bulgarians in the Nineteenth Century
Educational Efforts of American Missionaries Among Bulgarians in the Nineteenth Century

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines the efforts of American missionaries in the nineteenth century to support Bulgarian education through the translation and publication of primers, textbooks, grammars, and other books; the establishment of schools for boys and girls; and the sponsorship of Bulgarian students studying abroad. It explores the networks established by individual missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and the Methodist Episcopal Church with Bulgarian teachers and educators, as well as the influence these relationships had on increasing literacy among the local population prior to the Liberation. The study also argues that missionary educational activity functioned as a structured process of cultural transfer, in which translation, print culture, and institutional networks contributed to the standardisation of the Bulgarian literary language, the formation of educational practices, and the shaping of value systems. The study also considers the role of missionaries as lecturers in foreign educational institutions, where they contributed to the training of future Bulgarian teachers in various disciplines.

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