site.bta85th Birth Anniversary of Philosopher and Culturologist Ivaylo Znepolski

Tuesday marks the 85th birth anniversary of Bulgarian philosopher, culturologist, art historian and film critic Ivaylo Znepolski (1940-2023).

Born in Sofia on August 5, 1940, Znepolski graduated in philosophy from the St Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia in 1965 and worked as a research associate at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences' Institute for Contemporary Social Theories (1970-1984). In 1971 he earned a doctorate in art studies, and in 1982 he became a doctor of philosophical sciences.

He taught at the Krastyo Sarafov National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts between 1980 and 1984, and from 1984 to 2015 he was a professor at the Sofia University Faculty of Philosophy, where he headed the Culturology Department between 1990 and 2004. In 1997-1999, he did a three-year teaching stint at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris, France. At the University, his scientific pursuits focused on film and literature, theory of culture, mass communications, and semiotics.

Znepolski was deputy minister of culture (February 1991 - December 1992) and minister of culture (June 1993 - January 1995) and served as MP between 1995 and 1997.

He oversaw the inception of the Sofia Dialogue forum as an international platform for academic dialogue and intellectual exchange and initiated meetings with Umberto Eco, Paul Ricoeur, Jacques Derrida and other world famous intellectuals. In 2005, Znepoliski was among the founders of the Institute for Studies of the Recent Past, which he headed until 2022. The Institute is now named after him. 

Znepolski wrote over 160 research papers, essays, monographs and books. He directed and edited a collective monograph titled Bulgaria under Communism, published by Routledge in 2018. His last book, Totaliatarianism. Hannah Arendt, Eric Voegelinp, Raymond Aron, came out in 2023. 

He was awarded France's Ordre national du Merite (2012) and Bulgaria's highest honour, the Order of the Balkan Range, First Class (2021).

Prof. Ivaylo Znepolski passed away in Sofia on November 29, 2023.

"Prof. Ivaylo Znepolski was a luminary because of all his knowledge but also because he observed public life in Bulgaria, had an opinion and a position on everything important that was happening, and above all because he tackled probably the trickiest problem of this country's transition: a reassessment of the recent communist part," said Assoc. Prof. Georgi Lozanov, media expert and Editor-in-Chief of BTA's LIK magazine, in his appreciation occasioned by the anniversary. "He enabled us to look back into the past and find there our present and locate its dramas and traumas."

Lozanov described Znepolski as "a French-type intellectual, similar to Emile Zola, who was a conscience of the nation and enjoyed great authority."

The LIK Editor-in-Chief commented that Znepolski stood out among his contemporaries by employing the whole body of humanitarian knowledge in order to rationalize the problems of society and suggest solutions. "I suppose that his example will be projected in the future of culture," Lozanov pointed out.