Mercia MacDermott is an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 writer and historian. Having spent 27 years in Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

, MacDermott is known for her books on Bulgarian history

History of Bulgaria

The history of Bulgaria spans from the first settlements on the lands of modern Bulgaria to its formation as a nation-state and includes the history of the Bulgarian people and their origin. The first traces of human presence on what is today Bulgaria date from 44,000 BC...

. She has been a foreign member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences is the National Academy of Bulgaria, established in 1869. The Academy is autonomous and has a Society of Academicians, Correspondent Members and Foreign Members...

 since 1987 and was granted a honoris causa doctorate by Sofia University

Sofia University

The St. Clement of Ohrid University of Sofia or Sofia University is the oldest higher education institution in Bulgaria, founded on 1 October 1888...

 in 2007.

MacDermott was born in Plymouth

Plymouth

Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...

, Devon

Devon

Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. Her father was a surgeon with the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 and her mother was a teacher. Due to her father's work in the navy, she spent some of her early years in Weihai

Weihai

Weihai is a city in eastern Shandong Province, People's Republic of China. It is the easternmost prefecture-level city of the province and a major seaport. Between 1898 and 1930, the town was a British colony known as Weihaiwei or the Weihai Garrison , and sometimes as Port Edward...

, China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, and Mercia learned Mandarin Chinese. In the summer of 1947, while participating in a youth brigade in Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....

 with other English students, she had her first contact with Bulgarians

Bulgarians

The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...

, among which writer Pavel Matev

Pavel Matev

Pavel Hristov Matev was a Bulgarian poet.Matev was born in the village of Orisovo, in the Stara Zagora province, , and completed his gymnasium education in the town of Tsirpan in 1938. His first work was published in 1946. He completed a course in Slavic studies in Sofia University in 1949...

. In the same year, MacDermott visited Bulgaria for the first time to attend a celebration at the Divotino brigade members camp near the Pernik

Pernik

Pernik is a city in western Bulgaria with a population of 81,052 . It is the main city of Pernik Province and lies on both banks of the Struma River in the Pernik Valley between the Viskyar, Vitosha and Golo Bardo mountains.Originally the site of a Thracian fortress founded in the 4th century BC,...

–Voluyak railway line. In 1948, she graduated in Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

 philology from Oxford University and once again visited Bulgaria to participate in the international youth brigade building the Koprinka Reservoir

Koprinka Reservoir

Koprinka is a reservoir and dam in the Rose Valley, central Bulgaria.Its construction began after 1944 and was finished in 1956. It was built on the Tundzha river at 7 km to the west of the city of Kazanlak near the village of Koprinka. It is situated at 300 m to the south of the main sub-Balkan...

. As a foreign udarnik

Udarnik

Udarnik is a Russian, Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian term for a superproductive worker in the Soviet Union and ex-Yugoslavia. The term is derived from the expression "udarny trud" for "superproductive, enthusiastic labour", which is often translated as strike labour , and udarnik as strike worker,...

, MacDermott was invited along with other international participants to meet Georgi Dimitrov himself in the Euxinograd

Euxinograd

Euxinograd is a former late 19th-century Bulgarian royal summer palace and park on the Black Sea coast, north of downtown Varna. It is currently a governmental and presidential retreat hosting cabinet meetings in the summer and offering access for tourists to several villas and hotels...

 palace on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast

Bulgarian Black Sea Coast

The Bulgarian Black Sea Coast covers the entire eastern bound of Bulgaria stretching from the Romanian Black Sea resorts in the north to European Turkey in the south, along 378 km of coastline. White and golden sandy beaches occupy approximately 130 km of the 378 km long coast...

. While working at the reservoir, Mercia met her future husband Alexander MacDermott. Their daughter Alexandra MacDermott, a nuclear physics

Nuclear physics

Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies the building blocks and interactions of atomic nuclei. The most commonly known applications of nuclear physics are nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons technology, but the research has provided application in many fields, including those...

 scientist, was born in 1952. Upon returning to the United Kingdom, Mercia MacDermott enrolled in a Bulgarian-language course at the University of London

University of London

-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

's School of Slavonic and East European Studies

School of Slavonic and East European Studies

The UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies is a school of University College London . It is the largest centre for the study and research of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, and Russia in the United Kingdom...

.

Mercia MacDermott stayed in Bulgaria from 1962 to 1989 with brief interruptions. From 1963 to 1979 she was a teacher at the Sofia

Sofia

Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...

 High School of English. After that, until 1989 MacDermott read lectures on the Bulgarian national liberation movement in the region of Macedonia

Macedonia (region)

Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...

 at Sofia University's Faculty of History. From 1958 to 1973, MacDermott was the chairwoman of the London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

-based English–Bulgarian Association. An honorary citizen of Karlovo

Karlovo

Karlovo is a picturesque and a historically important town in central Bulgaria located in a fertile valley along the river Stryama at the southern foot of the Balkan Mountains...

 and Blagoevgrad

Blagoevgrad

Blagoevgrad is а city in southwestern Bulgaria, the administrative centre of Blagoevgrad Province, with a population of about 74,302 . It lies on the banks of the Blagoevgradska Bistritsa River....

, she is also the bearer of a number of Bulgarian state decorations.