The military history of Bulgaria has always aroused the justified interest of society. In its dominant narrative of epic battles and dynamic, tension-filled battles, a sign of the strength of the Bulgarian fighting spirit, the measure is the victories won, bravery, selflessness and feats. In this context, those military leaders who have marked their paths in Bulgarian history with determination and courage, who have elevated the art of war to exemplary levels and earned their place in military history textbooks, have enjoyed the greater publicity.

More and more often in recent decades in the nationally legitimized historical narrative have gained importance the real limits of possibility, unencumbered by bias, understood within the paradigms of their own time and within the framework of economic, political, technological, cultural and other restrictions. The focus of history has expanded toward a variety of factors that determine victory and defeat, factors interwoven with strength, morality, values and top achievements.
In this context the present multivolume edition turns its attention to the topic of the Bulgarian generals – known or little-known, popular or forgotten, who served Bulgaria faithfully and honestly in war and in peace, stood at the head of their troops but also shared their hardships; they made mistakes and were accused of mistakes; they were judged with and without guilt, arrested and executed.
The purpose set with the publication of this series is to present the Bulgarian generals of the Third Bulgarian Kingdom, highlighting their professional paths and their role in building the Bulgarian Army and in the five wars fought by Bulgaria during the period 1878 – 1946, through basic biographical data concerning their life paths and deeds.
The authors’ idea is the volumes of the book to include the names of all Bulgarian generals, with the aspiration that none should be omitted. Nothing was known about the activities of some of the representatives of the officer corps of the period under consideration before the preparation of the publication, and the available information about their promotion to the rank of general was very modest and even unknown. Moreover, in the encyclopaedic and specialized publications published so far, there was no biographical data for some of the generals, that
making the compilation of a complete list and the search for biographical details a lengthy and difficult task.
The only exception to the publications containing information about generals is the list with the most basic information in several lines about almost all officers of the Bulgarian army who graduated from military school (or the Reserve Officers’ School, but accepted into active military service) before March 1944. It was prepared as a separate publication and was printed in 1996 in Sofia edited by Rumen Rumenin under the title “The Officer Corps in Bulgaria 1878 – 1944”. Despite his desire for comprehensiveness, the list has omitted some names, contains incomplete or fragmentary information, and lacks data for certain officers. Nevertheless, in the preparation of the present edition, the information from the list, no matter how laconic it may be, was used, as it is undoubtedly useful.
More than 500 Bulgarian generals have been part of Bulgaria’s military history from the Liberation to the proclamation of the People’s Republic. Among the founders of the Bulgarian Army, some of whom later reached the rank of general, are names of participants in the April Uprising (1876) and in the national liberation struggles of the Bulgarian Revival, volunteers in the Serbo-Turkish War (1876), participants in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878). Many took part in the Serbo-Bulgarian War (1885) and in the wars for national liberation and unification (1912–1918), a significant number also served in the Second World War (1941–1945).