Dimitar Dimov House Museum

Overview

Dimitar Dimov is one of the most prominent Bulgarian novelists. He is best known for his novels "Tobacco" and "Doomed Souls". Both novels were filmed and became cinema classics in Bulgaria. Dimitar Dimov is a master of psychological portraying, discovering the fine layers of human emotionality. 

Dimitar Dimov House Museum in Sofia was opened in 1969 and is part of the National Museum of Bulgarian Literature. Here Dimitar Dimov spent the last 12 years of his life. In the museum, you can see his workplace, laboratory, and documentary exhibition, tracing moments from the life and creative path of the writer. The museum has a collection of the writer's archives - manuscripts, documents, materials related to his scientific work, a rich photo archive, personal belongings, equipment in chemistry, physics, radio engineering, and photography. His personal library with over 3000 books is also preserved.

Dimitar Dimov was born in 1909 in Lovech. His father, Totio Dimov died in battle a few days before the end of the Inter-Allied War, and five years later his mather married Officer Rusi Genev. Later, Rusi Genev became a tobacco expert.

In 1919 the family moved to Sofia. In 1934 Dimitar Dimov graduated as a doctor of veterinary medicine. For five years he practiced his profession as a veterinarian. Dimov was an Assistant Professor of animal anatomy at Sofia University since 1939, and from January 1943 until March 1944 specialized at Madrid University; his stay in Spain left a lasting influence on his works, including his friendship with the Spanish writer Eduardo Suniga.

In 1966, Dimitar Dimov, in his capacity as chairman of the Union of Bulgarian Writers, left with a delegation for Bucharest to meet with the Union of Romanian Writers. He died suddenly the next day, at the airport in Bucharest.