Georgy Fotev

Georgy Fotev (Георги Фотев) (born August 24, 1941) is a Bulgarian sociologist.

His scientific works are in the areas of theory and history of sociology and the disciplinary fields of modern sociology.

The focus of Fotev's research interests is the nature of sociology as a multiple paradigm science.

Another major theme is the dialogue as a base and horizon of multiple paradigm sociology.

Georgy Fotev has publications in the fields of historical sociology, sociology of politics, ethnosociology, the crisis of legitimacy and sociology of values.

His books The Long Night of Communism in Bulgaria and Bulgarian Melancholy explore the fate of the Bulgarian national society.

Georgy Fotev was born on 24 August 1941 in the village of Dimitrovche, Svilengrad Municipality, Bulgaria.

His life under the Communist regime was full of hardships.

His father being a political emigrant in West Germany, he and his family were interned in 1950.

After completing military service in the labour forces, for years he was prohibited from applying to study in any higher education institution.

Repressed by the Communist regime, he was employed as a manual worker for several years.

He eventually graduated in philosophy at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridsky in 1968 but was denied the right to do academic work on political grounds for years.

In 1976, he started work as a research fellow at the Institute of Sociology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences(BAS).

In 1989 he became a professor.

Georgy Fotev was Minister of Education and Science (1991–1992).

In 1991 he was Minister of Science and Education.

In 1992–2003 he was director of the Institute of Sociology at BAS.

He is also president of the Bulgarian Sociological Association and National Program Director for the European Values Study.

Georgy Fotev is the author of more than 250 scientific publications, many of them published abroad.

His works have come out in more than 15 countries.

The Senate of the European Academy of Sciences elected him active member in 1993, and he is also member of many other international scientific organizations.

Fotev has been a member of the editorial advisory board of the journal Polish Sociological Review since 2000, as well as of the editorial boards of other academic journals.

He was vice chairman of the board of directors of American University in Bulgaria from 2000 to 2003, and has been a member of the University Council of that university from 2003.

Fotev is married and has a son and daughter.

Georgy Fotev's studies in the field of history of sociology encompass the classics of sociology and the development of the Western sociological tradition from Antiquity to the end of the 20th century.

His books, The Sociological Theories of E. Durkheim, A Critical Comparative Analysis and Principles of Positivist Sociology, and many of his articles and studies are devoted to classical names in sociology.

In his two-volume work History of Sociology (two editions), he makes the distinction between proto-sociology and the development of sociology as a differentiated and poly-paradigmatic science.

Fotev's works on historical sociology, in particular his ''Social Reality and Imagination.

A Sociological Study on the Renaissance'', hold significance for the Bulgarian sociological tradition.

The concept of historical sociology rethinks the established disciplinary perspectives and status of this field within the ensemble of sociological sub-disciplines.

In Fotev's view, the unfolding project of modernity is linked to periodic crises of legitimacy, which, in late modernity, create the impression of a permanent crisis.

After the collapse of the totalitarian system, Fotev published the first book in Bulgaria specially devoted to the topic of civil society; in it, he explains why this concept was taboo in a totalitarian society.

Georgy Fotev is the founder of the disciplines of ethnosociology and sociology of religions in Bulgaria.

He has rethought fundamental concepts in these fields, such as ethnos, and has grounded an original thesis regarding the other ethnos.

His contributions in this area go beyond the boundaries of Bulgarian national sociology.

In his large-scale sociological treatise Limits of Politics and in his books The Meaning of Politics and Ethnicity and Religion and Politics, he has treated of fundamental problems of politics.

His studies in this field hold a major place in the author's work.

He is professor emeritus of New Bulgarian University, and in 2003 he was awarded the Distinguished Service Award from the American University in Bulgaria.

Other positions he has held include honorary professor of New Bulgarian University (2012), where he has been a member of the board of trustees since 1994, and Fulbright scholar at Duke University in the United States (1997–1998).

He was member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and Arts and in 2013, he restored the Institute of Sociology at this academy.