The Institute for Bulgarian Language “Prof. Lyubomir Andreychin” at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences invites you to meet Viktoria Beshliiska.
A philologist by education, Victoria Beshliiska has worked as a teacher, a fiction editor, and a professional in the fields of marketing and advertising. She is the creator of the blog Po Dirite na Dumite (In the Footsteps of Words), which has attracted more than 80,000 followers on Facebook. The blog is dedicated to collecting and popularising old Bulgarian words, revealing the richness, power, and vitality of the Bulgarian language.
Victoria Beshliiska received the Most Read Contemporary Bulgarian Author award in 2022 and 2025, as well as the Writer of the Year 2024 award from the Sofia City Library. In 2023, she was honoured with the Stoyan Mihaylovski Honorary Distinction, awarded by the Municipality of Elena.
Her debut novel, “Glina” (Clay), became one of the most widely read books in Bulgaria in recent years and received numerous distinctions, including the Helikon Booksellers’ Choice Award (2021), the Readers’ Choice Award of the Bulgarian National Television programme The Library (2021), and the European Debut Award at Eurocon 2022.
Her second novel, “Sartse”, was published in the autumn of 2022. Within a month of its release, it received the Helikon Booksellers’ Choice Award for 2022 and became one of the bestselling books of the year.
She is also the author of “Slovnik”, a unique journal that begins with ninety archaic Bulgarian words and continues with personal entries contributed by readers inspired by the power of writing.
Through her active public engagement, including visits throughout Bulgaria, meetings in schools and community cultural centres, and participation as a speaker in various forums and creative writing courses, she has become one of the most prominent contemporary advocates of Bulgarian language and culture. Her third novel, “Nishka”, continues this mission and was named Book of the Year 2024 by the readers of Ozone.bg.
We look forward to welcoming you on 25 March at 4:00 p.m. in Room 503 of the Institute for Bulgarian Language, 52 Shipchenski Prohod Blvd., Block 17, Sofia.
