Balgarianovinite.com Thursday marks the 110th birth anniversary of Nadejda Lekarska, a Bulgarian sports official and world-renowned international Olympic activist, translator and public figure.
She was born Edith David Alkalay in Sofia on March 5, 1916 to a wealthy Jewish family of a textiles trader. Her father adamantly opposed her dream to become an actress. She attended Sofia’s Deutsche Schule (up to the 7th grade) and then continued her studies at the College Feminin de Bouffemont near Paris, France, and at a teacher training institute in London, England. At that time she actively practised field hockey, basketball, volleyball, swimming, rowing, tennis and other sports. Back home, she enrolled at the Orel Equestrian Sports Club. She fell in love at first sight with his riding instructor there, Kroum Lekarski. Before they married in May 1938, she converted to Christianity and adopted the name Nadejda.
In 1953, she was appointed at the Foreign Information Office of the International Relations Department of the Supreme Committee for Physical Culture and Sports, where her task was to translate all materials related to Bulgaria in the Western press.
As an inspector at the Bulgarian Olympic Committee (BOC) in the late 1950s, Lekarska accompanied and interpreted for BOC’s foreign guests and drafted the Committee’s newsletter in French and English. The Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, BTA, the trade unions and other institutions often used her oral translation services.
Fluent in English, French and German, she was a legend in simultaneous and especially consecutive translation from these three languages into Bulgarian and from Bulgarian into English. Lekarska was uniquely capable of rendering a 20 or 30 minutes long statement without interrupting the speaker. In 1974, she was a founding member of the Bulgarian Translators’ Union (BTU). “To me, interpreting was not a necessity but a real pleasure because it was a source of new knowledge and skills,” she recalled. In 1992, the BTU conferred on her its special award for lifetime achievement as translator.
Nadia Lekarska (as she was better known in the international sports community) made her real international mark as the most influential woman in the Bulgarian and the global Olympic movement. She was the first female Olympic Attache and was involved in five consecutive Olympics between 1956 and 1978. In the 1956-1972 period, she represented BOC at the organizing committees of the cities hosting Olympic Games. At the recommendation of International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Avery Brundage, she spent two years in Mexico to help organize the 1968 Summer Olympic Games (Her book Moments, published in 1999, records her impressions of that stint). For more than 20 years, she was a member of various IOC commissions. Lekarska is the only Bulgarian woman to hold the highest IOC honours.
Lord Killanin, IOC President from 1972 to 1980, was keen to invite Lekarska to join the Committee, but the incumbent Bulgarian member, General Vladimir Stoytchev, was not inclined to resign his position. Another opportunity emerged later on, but this time she was sidestepped by Ivan Slavkov, son-in-law of Bulgaria’s communist dictator Todor Zhivkov.
She pioneered a long-standing initiative mottoed “Sport for a Peaceful World”, associated with BOC, which promoted the use of athletic competition to foster international unity, friendship, and diplomacy.
In the course of 22 years (until she turned 90), Lekarska lectured at the sessions of the National Olympic Academy, which she co-founded with five like-minded enthusiasts in 1983.
In January 2006, the Bulgarian Olympic Committee made her its honorary member.
In 1986, she received the Order of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria. She was also a Merited Worker of Culture (1975) and Merited Worker of Sports.
Nadejda Lekarska passed away in Sofia on the morning of March 9, 2008, aged 92. In March 2008, BOC instituted a special annual award for contribution to Olympic education and upbringing named after her.
“I am not religious, I am not subordinate to any synagogue or church. I am not interested in that. If I am affiliated with anything, it is with honesty and loyalty to others. And even though they may be very different from you, from your beliefs, loyalty still requires you to give them what they deserve: honesty,” Lekarska told interviewer Emil Bassat in 2006.
Following is an original English-language news story by which BTA’s External Service marked Lekarska’s 90th birthday in 2006:
“120 BULGARIA – OLYMPIC ACTIVIST – 90TH BIRTHDAY
World-Renowned Olympic Activist Nadejda Lekarska Turns 90
Sofia, March 6 (BTA) – The Bulgarian Olympic Committee (BOC) Monday staged a special ceremony to honour the 90th birthday of world-renowned Olympic activist Nadejda Lekarska.
BOC President Stefka Kostadinova and State Agency for Youth and Sports Chair Vessela Lecheva presented Lekarska with special commemorative plaquettes for her extraordinary services to the promotion of the Olympic movement and Bulgarian sports and on the occasion of her 90th birthday.
Lekarska has devoted her entire life to the Olympic idea. She was an Olympic Attache of Bulgaria at four Olympic Games between 1956 and 1978.
She was member of the International Olympic Committee’s Olympic Programme Commission in the course of 19 years, and she was on the leadership of the International Olympic Academy in the course of five years. She was among the founders of the Bulgarian Olympic Academy 20 years ago.
Lekarska received the highest honours of the International Olympic Committee in 1977 [Bronze Olympic Order] and 1997 and an honorary doctorate from Sofia’s National Sports Academy in 1997 [for her remarkable services to the international Olympic movement]. She has written a number of publications on topical issues of the Olympic Movement.
Her late husband, Lieutenant General Kroum Lekarski (1889-1981), was a prominent competitor in equestrianism. He took part in several Olympics, starting with Paris in 1924. Their son, Andrey Lekarski, is a world-famous avant-gardist artist and sculptor who lives in France. [They also had an elder son, Simeon, and a daughter, Svetla]. IT/LG” 110th Birth Anniversary of World-Renowned Olympic Activist Nadejda Lekarska 2026 THE NEWS FROM BULGARIA – NEWS AGENCY 2009-2025 2026-03-05 16:08:37 Latest news World news Country news Most important news latest news most important latest of the day Justice Petar Nizamov Feathers Petar Nizamov- Feathers Justice bg iustitia.bg iustitia iusticia usticia investigation Burgas Bulgaria news news of the last hour news of the day news of today Bulgaria news The news from Bulgaria blitz news top news most important most commented latest news Boyko Borisov news weather coronavirus news news weather facebook youtube facebook instagram news today news of the last minutes news today today news news bg news leading news hot news bg news site for news all news news bg news of the last hour latest latest news bg news of today news today news today news of the last hour latest news today news bg news news 24 hours news vesti bg novini news world bird bg bivol bg bivol trud bg novini latest news today novinite bg news hello bulgaria political party coat of arms delyan peevski scandalous Bulgarian National Television Free Europe Television scandal exclusive live tv live right now tv tv online tv program bg live now tv news online tv online live court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas district court Burgas appellate court Burgas prosecutor Burgas prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev Prosecutor Geshev Tsatsarov Ministry of Internal Affairs Burgas ODMR Burgas ODPR Burgas police Burgas district police Burgas prosecutor Tsatsarov SGS cases Varna court chairman of the SGS court decisions on civil cases decisions on cases Plovdiv court decision of the court decisions cases Varna court criminal cases district district court decisions work in the court SGS chairman of the SGS judges Sofia court post judges Plovdiv court Plovdiv judges Plovdiv Supreme Court Inspectorate Supreme Court Supreme Judicial Council lawyer lawyer criminal cases lawyer civil cases lawyer marriage cases lawyer administrative criminal law criminal process civil law civil process administrative law constitutional law