Zhana Nikolova-Gŭlŭbova

Zhana was born on 22 February 1908 in Trun in the family of a teacher father and an artist mother. In 1911, her family moves to Tsaribrod. She studies in a high-school in Sofia, after the family moves there as refugees due to the Balkan Wars. In 1926, she starts studying philology in the Sofia University. She graduates in 1931 as a specialist in classical philology and German philology. She then travels to Germany and specializes in philosophy.

In 1936, publisher house "Hemus" releases her first book - "The tongue of young Goethe". During the same year, she was also chosen through a competition to become a teacher in the same University which makes her the first woman in Bulgarian History to ever teach in a University.

With the support of Elin Pelin, and Yordan Yovkov, she also becomes a member of the Writer Union in Bulgaria. In 1945, she was later accused of spreading fascist propaganda by the communist government and removed from lecturing in the University, as well as removed from the Writer Union and prohibited from publishing any literary works.[2][3]

In 1999, she receives the honorary degree of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Doctor Honoris Causa.[4]

Nikolova-Gŭlŭbova is one of the essential figures in the development of Bulgarian essayists. Her name is often associated with others famous Bulgarian authors like Elisaveta Bagryana and Dora Gabe.

She greatly loves and knows Bulgarian literature, although she mainly specializes in German authors. She did many analysis works on Yordan Yovkov, Ekaterina Nencheva, Ivan Vazov, Dimcho Debelyanov, and Atanas Dalchev.

Her dictionaries later become the fundamental works which were in devising Bulgarian-German thesaurus and dictionaries. She has been actively writing during a period of 60 years, publishing more than 20,000 articles.