Исторически преглед

Издание на Института за исторически изследвания при БАН

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И.Ист.И.

A Teacher from Austria-Hungary in Pre- and Post-Liberation Bulgaria: The Life Story of the Hungarian Kalman Kiril Rongé

Един учител от Австро-Унгария в пред- и следосвобожденска България: животопис на унгареца Калман Кирил Ронже

Исторически преглед, 81 (2025) No. 3, pp. 33-60 (ISSN 0323-9748)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.71069/IPR3.25.PP02

Penka Peykovska / Пенка Пейковска

Institute for Historical Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Abstract: This article explores the personal life and professional activities of the Hungarian teacher Kálmán Kiril Rongé (1844 – ca. 1894), who worked in Bulgaria from 1869 to 1873 and again between 1879 and 1889–i.e., during the decade following the establishment of the Third Bulgarian State. Coming from Austria-Hungary, he is regarded as one of the prominent foreign modernizers of Bulgarian education and pedagogical practice. Remembered by his former students and colleagues as a near-legendary figure, very little factual information about him has been preserved. For this reason, the article offers a biographical reconstruction based on newly discovered Bulgarian and Hungarian archival and printed sources. Rongé’s life and public work are presented in the broader context of the social and educational developments in Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary. His contribution to the modernization of Bulgarian schooling and pedagogy is examined in detail and described as significant.

Keywords: Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, second half of the 19th century, Hungarian emigration, teacher, Kálmán Kiril Rongé, biography