Though impertinent and clumsy, Bay Ganyo proves to be ingenious and is considered by some scholars to be a mirror for a modernizing Bulgaria.

His visits to the World Exhibitions in Paris in 1889, Prague in 1891 and Chicago in 1893 – including a visit to Niagara Falls – provided Bulgarian readers, who had recently gained independence from nearly 500 years of Turkish Ottoman oppression, with a portrait of the developed world.

[1][2] He was assassinated in 1897 near Radilovo while traveling to Peshtera, most likely by mistake with the intended target being his friend (a local politician), with whom he had changed places in their coach shortly before the fatal shot.

However, there exists also a version that his essays, exposing the hidden insidious intentions of the rulers of his day, led to his assassination.

Two of Vitosha's hotels are named after him – "Aleko" and "Shtastlivetsa" ("The Happy Man", the nickname he gave to himself in one of his short stories).