Browsing the biographies of the generation of Bulgarian teachers who lived and worked in the years around the liberation-bringing Russo-Turkish war (1877--1878), we see the clear outlines of the impediments blocking the education and development endeavors of the young Bulgarian state, which was way behind the times five centuries after it had been engulfed by the Ottoman empire and severed from European culture. In this article we review the activities of eleven Bulgarian teachers who lived and

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... worked around the time of liberation from the Ottoman rule. Their life and activity along the borderline of two epochs strikes us with their self-sacrificial efforts to overcome the enormous backwardness of the Bulgarian nation. We point out their contribution in the spheres of education and science. The biographies of these Bulgarian teachers present a vivid picture of the times and would be an edifying subject to study and remember.