Opportunities for an Academic Career of Women Scientists at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (mid. 1940s-1980’s)
The object of the paper is the development of Bulgarian science during the totalitari-an period (1945-1989), but its subject is the scientific career of the habilitated women, working in the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) – the largest scientific organiza-tion in the country at that time. The aim is to explore the opportunities for vertical social (scientific) mobility and the existence of a “glass ceiling” for women’s scientific careers at the BAS. The research uses the social history approach, creating a collec-tive portrait and identifying major trends in the study period, using historical analysis of archival and published documents and content analysis of a prosopographic data-base containing biographies of habilitated women from the institutes and the labora-tories of the BAS.