Bulgarian Language, History, Folklore, and Traditions to Be Included in the University of Illinois Curriculum

The Bulgarian language, history, folklore, and traditions will be incorporated into the Bulgarian Studies curriculum at the University of Illinois—one of the most prestigious universities in the United States. This will be the first Bulgarian language lectureship in the U.S. in decades, as Bulgarian has so far only been taught in weekend schools. This was announced by Bulgaria’s Ministry of Education and Science on May 15.

For the past two years, the Consulate General of Bulgaria in Chicago has worked actively to restore Bulgarian language teaching at the university level in the United States. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where Bulgarian was once taught, was selected as the partner institution for this initiative. The state of Illinois and the city of Chicago are also home to the largest Bulgarian community in the U.S. Following contact with the university and with the assistance of the Bulgarian Consulate General in Chicago, memoranda of understanding were signed with Sofia University and Veliko Tarnovo University, the Ministry of Education noted.

The programme is set to launch in the 2025/2026 academic year, with the Ministry of Education soon to announce a selection procedure for a visiting lecturer. The selected academic will work in collaboration with the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Centre at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the university.

The opening of a Bulgarian lectureship in the United States will strengthen the position of Bulgarian Studies and contribute to the restoration of its institutional presence in America, where many Bulgarians, including students and scholars, live. Thanks to it, they will have the opportunity to maintain their relationship with their homeland.

The lectureship will also support scholarly research in the fields of Slavic and Balkan Studies by giving American students and researchers the opportunity to engage directly with the Bulgarian language, literature, and history, the Ministry of Education added.