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Plamen Tzvetkov was born on 8 August 1951 in Berlin (Germany) into a family of Bulgarian diplomats. He graduated with history major from the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” in 1976.In 1980 he defended his Ph.D. dissertation in Moscow State University on the topic: "Soviet policy of collective security and the Balkan countries during 1933-1935". In 1990 he published his habilitation work on "The European Powers, the Balkans and Collective Security (1933-1935)." From 1994 he began his lecturing work at the New Bulgarian University. In 1999 he defended the so-called higher doctoral thesis (Habilitationsschift) for the award of the degree "Doctor of Historical Sciences" on the theme "Small countries in the European policy during the time period of 1933-1939." Until 2000 he worked at the Institute for History at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and from February 2002 he was named Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at New Bulgarian University where he taught until his death in November 2015. In 2007 Prof. Tzvetkov was given the NBU award for Best Professor of the Year.
His research interests spanned from the political and diplomatic history of Bulgaria, the Balkans, Europe and the world in the 20th century to the early history of Bulgarians and especially the problem of descent of the Bulgarian ethnicity within Bulgarian historiography.
Prof. Plamen Tzvetkov had published more than 20 monographs, 80 scientific papers and articles and more than 350 journalistic publications. It should be particularly noted his two-volume work on Balkan history from Bulgarian perspective, published in Lewiston, N.Y., Edwin Mellen Press, 1993; two-volume history called "Europe in the 20th Century" published in 2002-2003 and a book on "The World of Megamyths: Some Political and Historiographical Myths of the 20th century" in 2008 (New Bulgarian University Press). He authored also a series of books on the medium-sized and small countries in the European policy on the eve of World War II as well as a monograph titled "Are the Bulgarians Slavs?" He has given lectures and papers in various universities and research centers in Austria, Bulgaria, England, Greece, Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and the USA.
Tzvetkov was member of Union of Scientists in Bulgaria (since 1991), the American Historical Society (since 1991), of the Academy of Political Science, New York (since 2007).
He was married, father of three children - a daughter and two sons. Member of the leadership of the Bulgarian branch of the American Worldwide Ecumenical Catholic Church of Christ. He died in Sofia on 3 November 2015.
Professor Plamen Tzvetkov was a distinguished scholar and university professor who taught several generations of young people; it is for them now to further on his work in studying and considering the various processes in modern European history and the democratic changes in our time. For this reason Prof. Tzvetkov's family donated to NBU his private library along with his scholarly and personal archive.
