Maria Todorova

Maria Todorova is the Gutgsell Professor of History Emerita and Professor Emerita, Center for Advanced Study at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She specializes in Eastern Europe, specifically the Balkans in the modern period. Her research focuses on historical demography, nationalism, socialism and post-communism. 

Her books include: Imagining the Balkans, in which she introduced the theory of Balkanism, translated into 15 languages; Bones of Contention: The Living Archive of Vasil Levski and the Making of Bulgaria's National Hero, which studies the significance of commemoration, heroes, and symbols for nationalism in Eastern Europe; The Lost World of Socialists at Europe's Margins: Imagining Utopia, which examines the promise for an alternative socialist utopia during its 'golden age' 1870s to 1920s; Balkan Family Structure and the European Pattern: Demographic Developments in Ottoman Bulgaria, which questions generalizations in historical demography; Scaling the Balkans: Essays on Eastern European Entanglements, which recenters the periphery. Todorova also led large scale international research projects dedicated to the historical, political, anthropological, and sociological study of Europe in relation to its communist past, resulting in several edited volumes.

Todorova earned her Ph.D. in History from University of Sofia. She has held awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, The Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, the National Humanities Center, the Woodrow Wilson Center, The Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, and is the recipient of honorary degrees from the European University Institute in Italy, University of Sofia and Panteion University in Greece.