ABSTRACT
The great changes after the war for liberation from the Ottoman Empire influenced all spheres of life, the life of Bulgarian women included. Gradually, the Bulgarian woman started moving beyond the confines of the family, struggling to overcome the patriarchal mentality imposed on her for centuries on end. At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, an ever-growing number of women directed their attention to the teacher's profession, and consequently, quite soon, women's need for an equal educational qualification with men was obvious. In the beginning, individual women, and later some of the already existing women societies, protested against the law prohibiting the admission of women into universities. The first petition to the National Assembly that insisted Bulgarian women be given the right to higher education was submitted in 1896. It is these first organized protests against imposed limitations on women that can be considered the early manifestations of the women's movement in Bulgaria.
