Ivan Shishmanov. Slavic World: Freiburg Lectures 1923/1924
Славянски свят. Фрайбургски лекции 1923/1924 г.
Language: Bulgarian
Ivan Shishmanov (1862–1928) was a Bulgarian writer, ethnographer, politician and diplomat. He served as Ambassador of Bulgaria to the Ukrainian State and the Ukrainian People's Republic.
Ivan Shishmanov studied at the Pedagogical School in Vienna from 1876 to 1882. He then studied philosophy and literature at Jena in 1884 and spent two years at Geneva. In 1888, he finished his Ph.D. studies in Leipzig under the direction of Professor Wilhelm Wundt. In 1888 Shishmanov was one of the founders of the High School of Sofia. In 1894 he became Professor of General Literary and Cultural History, and comparative literary history. He was also the founder and editor of periodical Folklore and Ethnography Collection. Shishmanov was a member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Shishmanov acted as a plenipotentiary representative of Bulgaria in the Ukrainian People's Republic during the reign of Pavlo Skoropadsky in 1918—1919.
In his research, he used a positivist methodology. He wrote works in the field of folk art and literature of national revival, as well as comparative works on European literature of the XVIII century and journalistic articles. He wrote works on ethnography and literary science. An expert on Ukrainian literature, in particular the works of Taras Shevchenko, he investigated the influence of Shevchenko's poetry on Bulgarian revival, having written the work "The role of Ukraine in the Bulgarian revival. The Influence of Shevchenko on Bulgarian Poets before the Liberation Age" (1916). The initiator and founder of the Bulgarian-Ukrainian Society (1920). Shevchenko Scientific Society member.