Bulgaria's first Great National Assembly honorary chairman Yossif Petrov, a poet, teacher, social activist and great humanist, died Saturday at the age of 95. Photo by bTV
Considered to be a living history of the country, being a social activist, an MP in Bulgaria's Great National Assembly and its first honorary chairman in 1990, the renowned Bulgarian poet Yossif Petrov died Saturday at the age of 95.
After graduating at a technical school in 1930 he used to be a teacher for 30 years. Yossif Petrov was also a scholarship holder of Germany's Humboldt University.
During the 1956 riotous events in Hungary, he was arrested by then communist regime and imprisoned in the Belene camp where he stayed until 1959.
His first poetic works collected under the title Homeland was published in 1939. Later, in the prison he used to remember his rhymes for years and then write them down on a paper, which he dug in earth for another 30 years. After democratic changes in late 80s, Petrov published them in a book titled "Yell from Prison".
Yossif Petrov was awarded with the state supreme order Stara Planina - First Ghrade in January 2000 and a year earlier welcomed as a member of the local Rotary Club in the town of Yambol, south Bulgaria.