Irina Bokova

Irina Georgieva Bokova (Ирина Георгиева Бокова; born 12 July 1952) is a Bulgarian politician and a former Director-General of UNESCO (2009–2017).

During her political and diplomatic career in Bulgaria, she served, among others, two terms as a member of the National parliament, and deputy minister of foreign affairs and minister of foreign affairs ad interim under Prime Minister Zhan Videnov.

She also served as Bulgaria's ambassador to France and to Monaco, and was Bulgaria's Permanent Delegate to UNESCO.

Bokova was a member of the Bulgarian communist party until 1990, when the party was renamed in Bulgarian Socialist Party, and her membership was cancelled, after changes in the law that year required that employees of several ministries, among them Foreign Affairs, should not be members of any political party.

Bokova was two terms member of the Bulgarian Parliament – the first term in 1990-1991 during the 7th Grand (Constitutional) National Assembly, elected as a majoritarian representative with the Bulgarian Socialist Party list, and the second, during the 39th National Assembly, in 2001–2005, with the Coalition for Bulgaria list.

In addition to her mother tongue Bulgarian, she speaks English, French, Spanish and Russian.

She is married to Kalin Mitrev, a director at EBRD, and has two children.

Subsequently, she worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria, starting in 1977 as a third secretary and eventually becoming acting minister (ad interim) between 13 November 1996 – 13 February 1997.

Bokova was also the personal representative of Bulgaria's president to the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (2005–2009).

On 15 November 2009, she took office as the ninth Director-General of UNESCO, marking two firsts: she became both the first female and the first Southeastern European to head the agency.

At UNESCO, Bokova advocated for gender equality, improved education and preventing funding for terrorism, especially by enforcing the protection of intellectual goods.

A firm opponent of racism and anti-Semitism, Director-General Bokova led UNESCO's activities on Holocaust remembrance.

Irina Bokova is the daughter of the communist politician Georgi Bokov, editor-in-chief of Rabotnichesko Delo, the official newspaper and organ of the Bulgarian Communist Party.

By descent Bokova is Bulgarian.

Bokova graduated from the First English Language School, and then went on to graduate from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, preparing young apparatchiks from the entire Eastern Bloc for future tasks such as diplomats and agents under the control of the KGB.

On 22 September 2009, Bokova was elected Director-General of UNESCO.

She defeated nine candidates at the election in Paris, with Farouk Hosny ultimately being defeated by 31–27 in the fifth and last round of voting.

Hosny had been expected to win but attracted criticism from figures such as Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel over his anti-Israel statements.

She took over the position from Koïchiro Matsuura of Japan.

She entered the office of the Director-General as both the first woman, and the first Southeastern European to take this role.

On 15 October 2009, the 35th session of the General Conference elected Irina Bokova of Bulgaria as the tenth Director-General of UNESCO.

The investiture took place in a ceremony in Room I in the afternoon of Friday 23 October 2009.

In 2009, while most of the Bulgarian media was supportive of Ms. Bokova's future role at the helm of UNESCO, some raised questions about her past as a daughter of a member of the totalitarian communist elite.

Bulgarian-born German writer Iliya Troyanov criticised Bokova's election as Director-General of UNESCO in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, calling it "a scandal," in light of Bokova's father's communist past.

On the other hand, The New York Times not only published an article, explaining who Mrs. Bokova is, but also officially supported her nomination on the grounds that "[s]he played an active role in Bulgaria's political transformation from Soviet satellite to European Union member. That should be a strong asset in leading an organization badly buffeted in the past by ideological storms."

On 4 October 2013, the executive board of UNESCO nominated her for second term as Director-General.

She was re-elected by the UNESCO General Conference on 12 November 2013.

On 16 January 2014, Irina Bokova yielded to pressure from the Arab League and postponed for five months an exhibit entitled The People, the Book, the Land – 3,500 years of ties between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel, following protest from the Arab states in UNESCO, arguing it would harm the peace process.

Invitations had already gone out and the exhibit was scheduled to run from 21 January through 30 January at UNESCO's Paris headquarters with fully prepared exhibition material already in place.

In a letter to Bokova, Abdulla al Neaimi, an official from the United Arab Emirates, expressed "deep worry and great disapproval" over the program showing the age old connection between Israel and the Jewish people.

The US State Department said it was outraged at the move, "UNESCO's decision is wrong and should be reversed."

Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs said "is no appropriate rationale to delay the exhibition and deeply disappointed by the decision made to postpone it".

The Wiesenthal Center called the move an "Absolute outrage, the Arabs don't want the world to know that the Jews have a 3,500-year relationship to the Land of Israel".

The exhibition was opened on 11 June 2014 in Paris, in a ceremony with participation by Mrs. Bokova and the Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Rabbi Marvin Hier.

The exhibit was co-sponsored by Israel, Canada, and Montenegro, and was called "a breakthrough" by its author, professor Robert Wistrich.

In 2015 German newspaper Die Welt discovered an error on her UNESCO biography page, where she was named the minister, and not the ad interim.

When it came to public attention, the error was immediately removed.

On 18 November 2015 Irina Bokova was given the Special Award of the Simon Wiesenthal Center at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., for the inauguration of the exhibition People, Book, Land: The 3,500 year Relationship of the Jewish People with the Holy Land in the U.S. capital.

Bokova inaugurated the exhibition in the presence of Edward Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Eliot Engel, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Israel's Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer and Rabbi Marvin Hier.

On 28 March 2015, she launched Unite4Heritage, a campaign aiming to create a global movement "to protect and safeguard heritage in areas where it is threatened by extremists".