Mikhail Arnaudov
1878–1978 (age 100)
Biography
Ethnologist Mikhail Arnaudov devoted his long life to collecting and interpreting the customs, songs, and oral histories of Bulgarian villages, traveling extensively and publishing detailed studies that preserved vanishing traditions.
As a researcher at the Ethnographic Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, he trained younger scholars, helped curate museum collections, and voiced the deep cultural value of folk heritage for national identity.