Georgi Markov

Georgi Markov was born on March 1 1929 in Knyazhevo, a Sofia neighborhood. In 1946 he graduated from high school and began university studies in industrial chemistry. Initially Markov worked as a chemical engineer and a teacher in a technical school. At the age of 19 he fell ill with tuberculosis which forced him to periodically attend various hospitals. His first attempts in writing occurred during that time. In 1957 he published “The Night of Celsius”. Soon the novel “The Ajax Winners” (1959) and two collections of short stories (1961) saw the light. In 1962 Markov published the novel “Men” which won the annual award of the Union of Bulgarian Writers and he was subsequently accepted as a member of the Union – a prerequisite for a professional career in literature during the Communist times in Bulgaria. Georgi Markov started working at “Narodna Mladezh” publishing house. The story collections “A Portrait of My Double” (1966) and “The Women of Warsaw” (1968) secured his place as one of the most talented young writers of Bulgaria. Markov also wrote a number of plays but most of them were never staged or were removed from theatre repertoire by the Communist censors: “To Crawl under the Rainbow”, “The Elevator”, “Assassination in the Cul-de-Sac”, “Communists”, “I Was Him”. The novel “The Roof” was halted in mid-printing since it described as a fact and in allegorical terms the collapse of the roof of the steel mill “Lenin”. Markov was one of the authors of the popular TV series “On Every Milestone” which created the character of the Second World War detective Velinsky and his nemesis the Resistance fighter Deyanov.

During that time and despite the ban of some of his works Georgi Markov was an acclaimed author who among other writers and poets the Communist leader Todor Zhivkov tried to co-opt and coerce into serving the regime with their works. During that period Markov led a bohemian lifestyle which was unknown to most Bulgarians.