The Schools Run by the Resurrection Fathers for the Bulgarian Youth (1863-1913). The Avant-garde of Modern Education in the Balkans

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the school complex run by the Resurrection Fathers in Adrianopol (1863-1913), mostly by Poles and addressed at the Bulgarian youth. The complex was composed of elementary schools, craft school, seminary, and, above all, classical secondary school. The latter was for decades a most prominent and best organized institute in the Bulgarian territories. It educated a considerable part of the intellectual, political, military and economical elite, an elite that took the lead in the life of Bulgaria until mid-twentieth century.

The Bulgarian youth, admitted irrespective of their denomination, were not obliged to pay any fee. The lectures were conducted in French, but the staff made every effort to help them master the pure literary Bulgarian language. The educational methods, modern as for that time, aimed at forming people of a high sense of morals, nation and society.