in Sofia, the capital of the Principality of Bulgaria, the third child of Nikola Stranski (1854 - 1910), pharmacist to the royal court, and his wife Maria Krohn, a Baltic German.

[6] In 1930, Ivan Stranski received a Rockefeller scholarship and along with Kaischew was invited to Technische Hochschule Berlin, where he collaborated with prominent physical chemist Max Volmer.

[5] With the advance of the Red Army, Stranski returned to Berlin to work at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry.

As Nazi Germany surrendered, Volmer was taken by force to the Soviet Union and Stranski took his place as the director of studies at Technische Hochschule Berlin's Department of Physical Chemistry.

[5] After the Bulgarian coup d'état of 1944 and the installment of a communist government, Stranski was accused of links to the preceding pro-fascist régime and removed from the department that he established.

[8][3] Throughout his life, he was honoured with awards such as the German Chemical Society's August Wilhelm von Hofmann Silver Medal (1939), the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Cyril and Methodius Prize for Science (1940), the Great Cross of Merit of West Germany's Order of Merit, as well as honorary doctorates from the University of Breslau (1940) and the Free University of Berlin (1954).

[6] Two modern institutes bear his name: the Stranski Laboratory for Physical und Theoretical Chemistry (Stranski-Laboratorium für Physikalische und Theoretische Chemie; called Iwan N.-Stranski-Institut from 1967 to 2001) of Technische Universität Berlin, and the Stranski Institute of Metallurgy (I.-N.-Stranski-Institut für Metallurgie) in Oberhausen.