Vela Blagoeva

Blagoeva returned to Sofia in 1884 and began teaching at the Sofia Exemplary Girls' School. In July 1885,[2] she established with Dimitar the first socialist journal in Bulgaria, Modern Trends (Bulgarian: Съвременний показател) which they co-edited. She wrote articles about discrimination against teachers, equality and women's education.[6] For the duration of the Serbo-Bulgarian War she volunteered as a nurse at Slivnitsa and Pirot.[2] Because of her outspoken political ideology and support for Socialism, Blagoevna was repeatedly transferred or dismissed from teaching posts. Between 1884 and 1912, she taught in a succession of schools in Sofia (1884–1885), Shumen (1886–1887), Vidin (1897–1890), Veliko Tarnovo (1890–1892), Stara Zagora (1892–1893), Plovdiv (1893–1896), Tulcha (1901–1902), Plovdiv (1902–1903), Sofia (1905–1907) and Marashki Trustenik (1907–1912).[6] In 1912, she had health issues and though she retired from teaching, she continued with other endeavors.[2]

In 1894, Blagoeva began the magazine Case (Bulgarian: Дело) which was founded to disseminate socialist literary works of Bulgarian authors. She featured the poems by Kiril Hristov, Dimitar Polyanov (1876-1953) and Ivan St. Andreychin (1872-1934), and prose from Anton Strashimirov. She edited the journal until 1896, when she was forced to suspend publication, primarily because of her husband's activities.[7] In 1901, she was a co-founder of the first national women's organization, Bulgarian Women's Union (Bulgarian: Български женски съюз) (BZhS)[6] along with Dimitrana Ivanova, Ekaterina Karavelova, Anna Karima, Kina Konova, Julia Malinova, and others.[8] Two years later Blagoeva led the faction that split from the BZhS for ideological differences. She believed that the BzhS had become too focused on upper-class women's issues alone and was not focused on the worker's needs. She founded a journal called Women's Labor (Bulgarian: Дамски труда) where she began advocating for worker's rights.[6]

In 1905, Blagoeva founded the first educational group for women workers which focused on a socialist message and by August of that year had organized a conference for socialist women in Sofia. These actions drew criticism, including from her husband, on the basis that male colleagues believed that women should remain part of the united workers movement. While she remained against attempts to unite all women under one umbrella organization, Blagoeva argued with male colleagues that women had the right to make their own decisions. While all of her writings were devoted to socialism, she wrote about women's emancipation from the societal strictures of patriarchy and subordination and urged women's independence, equal education, paid labor, access to education and the abolition of punishment for prostitution. She published widely in newspapers and journals including Bulgarian collection (Bulgarian: Bulgarska sbirka), Day (Bulgarian: Den), Democratic review (Bulgarian: Democraticheski pregled), Firefly (Bulgarian: Svetulka), Just Deed (Bulgarian: Pravo delo), New Times (Bulgarian: Novo vreme), Red laughter (Bulgarian: Cherven smjah), School review (Bulgarian: Uchilishten pregled) and Teacher (Bulgarian: Uchitel) and edited Deed (Bulgarian: Delo), Women's Bulletin (Bulgarian: Zhenski Bjuletin).[9] Often her earnings, due to her husband's unemployment for his dissidence, were the sole support of their family.[10]

Blagoeva and Dimitar had four children: Stela (1887-1954) Natalia (1889-1943), Vladimir (1893-1925) and Dimitur (1895-1918). Dimitur was killed during World War I.[1] Blagoeva died in Sofia on 21 July 1921.[10] Posthumously, a school in her hometown was named in her honor.[11]