Born: 13 August 1826, Bulgaria
Died: 1 January 1894
Country most active: North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece
Also known as: Неделя Петкова, Grandma Nedelya, Baba Nedelya
The following is excerpted from “400 Outstanding Women of the World and the Costumology of Their Time” by Minna Moscherosch Schmidt, published in 1933.
In a little house during the year 1826 was born a baby girl, destined to become the pioneer of education in Macedonia. This intelligent child was brought up by her aunt — the nun Teofania. At nineteen we find her married to Peter Karaivanoff, at thirty a widow with five children. Henceforth, poverty, hunger, and sickness became her constant companions. Courageously, she took up handwork to feed and clothe her children and still found time to keep up her education. Her intelligence attracted the attention of the leader of Bulgarian education, Naiden Geroff, who engaged her in 1859 to teach at the Sofia schools. She gathered her pupils in a private home and by the end of the first year had two hundred eighty pupils. Unfortunately, Baba Nedelia’s success brought upon her the organized opposition of three races — the Turks, the Greeks and the Serbs. Besides the most conservative, older Bulgarian women discouraged the young girls’ attendance at Baba Nedelia’s classes. After three years she accepted a position in Kustendil and started on horseback, accompanied by one of her daughters. On the way they were overtaken by a snowstorm and forced to spend a night in the open while wolves howled around them. She taught three years in Samokov and so successfully that the people made plans to build a schoolhouse. After spending a year at Kustendil, Baba Nedelia accepted the invitation of the Prilep people and her famous Macedonian career commenced. Braving jealousy, living on a beggarly salary more often unpaid than paid, hindered and vexed by the countless intrigues of the Greek clergy, she always attracted many scholars and won the devotion of her pupils and their parents. Frequently the school room served at night, as her sleeping quarters, often she went to bed hungry and cold, for her salary sent by the Bulgarian public library in Constantinople was retained by the hostile Greek clergy. In Ochrid, at the instigation of the Greek bishop, the Turkish authorities arrested her and searched her quarters for seditious books. From Ochrid she went to Veles, where along with her strenuous school work, she took an active part in the cause for freedom and in consequence, was again arrested and tried at Salonica, but released through lack of evidence. In Salonica, Baba Nedelia founded in 1871 the first girls’ school, as well as the society “Zoro.” Leaving her daughter to replace her in the school room, she started collecting for the society and the school, at the same time, advocating education for women. The Russian Consul asked her to select four good, but poor, girls to be educated in Russia for the teaching profession. Baba Nedelia took the girls to Russia and while there, collected money for the Bulgarian church in Salonica. After the Russian-Turkish war, Baba Nedelia returned to Bulgaria, where she died.