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'''Aleko Konstantinov''' (January 1, 1863 - May 23, 1897) was a [[Bulgaria|Bulgarian]] novelist, best known for his character Bai Ganio, one of the most popular characters in Bulgarian fiction.
Born to an affluent trader in the [[Danube River]] town of Svishtov, he attended the Faculty of Law of the University of Odessa in 1885. He worked as a jurist in [[Sofia]] before embarking on a writing career. His first novel, ''Bai Ganio'' ("Uncle Ganio"), describes the travels through Western Europe of an itinerant peddler of [[rose oil]] and rugs. Though impertinent and clumsy, the otherwise ingenious Bai Ganio has been seen as a mirror for a modernizing Bulgaria.
Konstantinov, a cosmopolitan traveler, was the first Bulgarian to write about his visits to Western Europe and America. He visits to the World Exhibitions in [[Exposition Universelle (1889)|Paris]] in 1889, Prague in 1891 and [[World Columbian Exposition|Chicago]] in 1893 provided Bulgarian readers, who had recently gained independence from 500 years of [[Ottoman Empire|Turkish Ottoman]] oppression, with a portrait of the developed world. ''To Chicago and Back'', his travel notes from his American trip, spurred a lasting interest in Chicago, which today boasts the largest concentration of Bulgarian immigrants in the United States.
His essays exposing the hidden insidious intentions of the rulers of his day led to his assissination in 1897.
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