Grigor Parlichev

Who was Grigor Parlichev?

Grigor Stavrev Parlichev was a Bulgarian writer and translator. He was born January 18, 1830 in Ohrid, Ottoman Empire and died in the same town January 25, 1893. Although he thought of himself as a Bulgarian, presently he is considered an ethnic Macedonian as well in the Republic of Macedonia.

Parlichev studied in a Greek school in Macedonia. In the 1850s he worked as a teacher of Greek in the towns of Tirana, Prilep and Ohrid. In 1858 Parlichev started studying medicine in Athens but transferred to the Faculty of Linguistics in 1860. The same year Parlichev took part in the annual poetic competition in Athens winning first prize for his poem "O Armatolos", written in Greek. Acclaimed as "second Homer", he was offered scholarships to the universities at Oxford and Berlin but declined both.

In 1862 Parlichev joined the struggle for independent Bulgarian church and schools, though he continued to teach Greek. After spending some time in Constantinople in 1868 acquainting himself with Old Slavonic literature, he returned to Ohrid where he advocated the substitution of Greek with Bulgarian in the town's schools and churches. The same year Parlichev was arrested and spent several months in an Ottoman jail after a complaint was sent by the Greek bishop of Ohrid.