Vasil Aprilov | |
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.JPG) Depiction of Aprilov | |
| Born | (1789-07-21)21 July 1789 Gabrovo, Ottoman Empire |
| Died | 2 October 1847(1847-10-02) (aged 58) Galaţi, Moldavia |
| Citizenship | Russian |
Vasil Evstatiev Aprilov (Bulgarian:Васил Евстатиев Априлов; 21 July 1789 – 2 October 1847) was aBulgarian educator, merchant, philanthropist, writer and a national activist.[1][2][3] Aprilov was a leading figure of theBulgarian National Revival.[4] He contributed to the establishment of secular Bulgarian education and the modern Bulgarian school.[5]
Vasil Evstatiev Aprilov was born inGabrovo, Ottoman Empire (nowBulgaria), in 21 July 1789, to a rich merchant family.[6][7][8] In that period, Gabrovo was an important center of manufacture and trade.[6] He was raised as aHellenophile.[7] Aprilov went to a cell school in his hometown. At the age of 11, after the death of his father, he went toMoscow in theRussian Empire, where his brothers Hristofor and Nikofor traded cotton and rose oil. He went to study at a Greek school because working in trade required proficiency inGreek.[1][6] Aprilov continued his education at a grammar school inBraşov. The city harbored Bulgarian refugees and many of its inhabitants were from his hometown. Since he was classified as an orphan, it is likely that the school gave him a scholarship too. In 1807, he entered theUniversity of Vienna to study medicine but he did not have the opportunity to graduate due to an illness and the bad financial situation of his brothers.[1][6]
In 1809, he returned to the Russian Empire and received citizenship. From 1811 he became a merchant inOdessa along with his brothers.[6] In theNizhyn Greek Registry, he was classified as a Greek.[9][10] He assisted volunteers from Odessa who wanted to participate in theGreek War of Independence and after retiring from trade in 1826, he gave large sums of money to the Greek educational movement. However, in 1830, he came into a dispute with the Greeks and went toConstantinople. Inspired by the reforms there, he came up with the idea to create a European-style school.[6] After leaving Constantinople,[6] under the influence ofYuriy Venelin's book "The Ancient and Present Bulgarians" (1829), he abandoned his Hellenophilia and adopted Bulgarian nationalism in 1831. Afterward, he worked to shift Bulgarian education and culture toward Russia and away from Greece.[11]
In 1832, he suggested the establishment of a school in the hometown toNikolay Palauzov.[6] In 2 January 1835,[1] he established theAprilov High School in Gabrovo, with education inBulgarian.[12] This was the first Bulgarian secular school using theBell-Lancaster method.[13][14] Aprilov and Palauzov had contributed 2,000groschen for the school, while monkNeofit Rilski started working as a teacher there. The Greek archbishop ofTarnovo had also encouraged their efforts and the Bulgarian émigrés from Bucharest also contributed money.[1][6][15] The emergence of this school gave a boost to Bulgarian education and soon other schools were opened all over the Bulgarian-populated regions of theOttoman Empire. Both he and Rilski remained members of theEcumenical Patriarchate.[13] Aprilov also came into contact with Venelin in 1836 and financially supported him, until his death in 1839.[6] He offered stipends for Bulgarian students for studying in the Russian Empire, starting with four stipends in 1840.[11] On 15 September 1843, theHoly Synod of theRussian Orthodox Church allowed him to send books to four churches in the area of Gabrovo.[10] Aprilov died on 2 October 1847, inGalaţi,Moldavia (nowRomania), fromtuberculosis.[16] In hiswill, he had written that he dedicated his savings for the education of the Bulgarians. Aprilov also had 60,000rubles in his bank account, which were to be used for his Gabrovo school.[6]
Aprilov collected folk songs and sent them to Venelin. He published a booklet calledBulgarian letters or to which Slavic people does the Cyrillic alphabet actually belong? in 1841, where he disputed the claim byDimitrije Tirol that Cyril and Methodius were of Serb origin. In the same year, he publishedDawn of the new Bulgarian education. In 1845, in Odessa, he publishedBulgarian charters, a collection of historical texts about Bulgarian tsarsKaloyan andIvan Shishman. In his 1845 addressLetter to my fellow countrymen, he urged Bulgarians to work on having Bulgarians appointed inepiscopal sees. Until 1847, all of his works were written inRussian, while his bookIdeas about the current Bulgarian education, which he published in Odessa, was his first book in Bulgarian.[6]
He was among the first Bulgarians to write about the Bulgarian revival and traced its beginning to the abolition of theJanissaries in 1826 and implementation of theTanzimat reforms.[6][17] Aprilov thought that liturgical Greek should be taught alongside Bulgarian.[13] He regarded Russian education as more progressive than Greek education. For him, the school curriculum was to be secular, rationalist and patriotic.[7]Eastern Bulgarian was his proposal for the basis of literary Bulgarian.[18]
Aprilov Point onGreenwich Island,South Shetland Islands,Antarctica, is named in his honor. A monument of him is in Gabrovo.[19]
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