Rayko Zhinzifov

Rayko Ivanov (Yoanov) Zhinzifov or Rajko Ivanov (Jovanov) Žinzifov, (Bulgarian: Райко Иванов (Йоанов) Жинзифов, Macedonian: Рајко Иванов (Јованов) Жинзифов; 15 February 1839 – 15 February 1877), born Ksenofont Dzindzifi (Cyrillic: Ксенофонт Дзиндзифи), was a Bulgarian National Revival poet and translator from Veles in today's North Macedonia, who spent most of his life in the Russian Empire.

Zhinzifov was born on 15 February 1839 into an Aromanian family in Veles in the Ottoman Empire, today in North Macedonia.

[1][2][3] His father Yoan Dzindzifi was a Hellenophile, who named him Xenophon (Ksenofont) and taught him Greek, although he also gained Slavic literacy.

[6] At the end of the year, at the invitation of Konstantin Miladinov, he moved to Moscow, where he joined the Slavic Charity Committee.

[6] Zhinzifov became close to the Slavophiles in Moscow, who provided him with both material and moral support, and became an adherent of Slavophilia himself.

[8] Zhinzifov lived among the young Bulgarian diaspora in Moscow, along with Lyuben Karavelov, Nesho Bonchev, Konstantin Miladinov, Vasil Popovich, etc., and issued the Brotherly Labour magazine.

On 8 February 1868, at the suggestion of Nil Popov, Zhinzifov was elected as a member of the Ethnographic Department of the Imperial Society of Lovers of Natural Science, Anthropology and Ethnography.

On the other hand, in the newspaper Bulgarian Bee, a review of the book was published by Karavelov, who criticized Zhinzifov for his Slavophile views.

[3][4][5] He opposed all cultural imports (dress, dances, languages, foreign words) as a Slavophile with the aim to preserve traditional patriarchal morality.

[15] Writers such as Ivan Vazov and Petko Slaveykov denied the value of his work, while others like Anton Strashimirov and Stefan Mladenov defended him.