Mercia MacDermott


Mercia MacDermott is an English writer and historian. Having spent 27 years in Bulgaria, MacDermott is known for her books on Bulgarian history.

Early life

Mercia was born on 7 April 1927 in Plymouth, Devon, United Kingdom. Her father was Geoffrey Palmer Adshead, a Royal Navy surgeon captain, and her mother was Olive May Adshead, a teacher. Due to her father's work in the navy, she spent some of her early years in Weihai, China, where Mercia learned Mandarin Chinese. She grew up in Ditchling and later was educated at Westonbirt School, Gloucestershire and St Anne's College, Oxford University where she read Russian Literature. In the summer of 1947, while participating in a youth brigade in Yugoslavia with other English students, she first met with Bulgarians, among whom was the writer Pavel Matev.
In the same year, Mercia visited Bulgaria for the first time to attend a celebration at the Divotino brigade members camp near the Pernik–Voluyak railway line. In 1948, she graduated with an MA degree from Oxford and once again visited Bulgaria to participate in the international youth brigade building the Koprinka Reservoir. As a foreign udarnik, Mercia was invited along with other international participants to meet Georgi Dimitrov in the Euxinograd palace on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast. While working at the Koprinka reservoir, Mercia met her future husband Alexander MacDermott. Returning to the United Kingdom in 1948, MacDermott enrolled in a Bulgarian language course at the University of London's School of Slavonic and East European Studies.

Career

Mercia MacDermott resided in Bulgaria from 1962 to 1989 with brief interruptions. From 1963 to 1979 she was a teacher at the English Language High School in Sofia. MacDermott subsequently lectured on the Bulgarian national liberation movement in the region of Macedonia at Sofia University's Faculty of History. She was elected a foreign member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in 1987. In 2007, Sofia University awarded her an Honorary Doctorate.
MacDermot's activity is described by Waller, Diane in

Positions and awards

From 1958 to 1973, MacDermott was the chairwoman of the London-based English–Bulgarian Association. An honorary citizen of Karlovo and Blagoevgrad, she is also the bearer of a number of Bulgarian state decorations.

Personal life

The MacDermotts had a daughter Alexandra born in 1952. They divorced in 1964. Alexandra MacDermott, D.Phil. is a professor in physical chemistry at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. Mercia's brother Samuel Adrian Miles Adshead was a distinguished sinologist and former professor of history at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.