The Master of Several Trades and the Historian: The Stories of Two Exiled Bulgarian Intellectuals during the Cold War Years
The Master of Several Trades and the Historian: The Stories of Two Exiled Bulgarian Intellectuals during the Cold War Years

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on the lives and activities during the Cold War of two Bulgarian émigré intellectuals – Petar Ouvaliev aka Pierre Rouve (1915–1998) and Spas Raikin (1922–2014). Petar Ouvaliev, an immigrant to London since 1947, was a diplomat, university lecturer, translator, art critic, semiotician, and film producer and director. A man of enormous charm and erudition, as a BBC World Service broadcaster he discussed cultural and social issues, literature and art. After graduating from Columbia University in New York, for several decades Spas Raikin taught history at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania. Prof. Raikin published more than twenty books and a number of papers and articles. Studying the lives of these two Bulgarians, one can see how diverse things can be for an intellectual away from his original home. Petar Ouvaliev did not speak about politics to his radio audiences. He maintained contacts with many Bulgarian intellectuals from his home country. Spas Raikin, on his part, was engaged in émigré political activities in the United States and was Secretary General of the American Friends of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations. The differences between them notwithstanding, these two exiled intellectuals shared a common trait – love and nostalgia for the country of their birth and anxiety for its destiny both during and after the Cold War.

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