Tsvyatko Pupov – a Merchant Who Got Involved in Politics by Chance

Tsvyatko Pupov was a merchant who participated in the formation of the Bulgarian constitutional system in 1879 as a Member of the Constituent National Assembly. As a representative of the commercial elite of the Bulgarian National Revival period and after the Liberation, he developed as an entrepreneur at his own expense, and he earned a living as such. Although he was poorly educated and a typical product of the education system of the 1840s and 1850s, he had an obvious talent for trade. He gradually set up his own system of trade which was not very modern, but enabled him to control his costs and revenues per settlement and counterparty. He recorded them on a regular basis and, at the end of each year, he would recapitulate the individual open positions, which was in full accordance with the tradition and logic of National Revival merchants. Pupov did not seek to create any continuous working process. What mattered to him was to use all opportunities provided by what was produced in Bulgarian villages at the time – grain, leather, wool, butter and tallow, and to meet rural buyers’ needs of colonial goods. Thus, he proved to be an entrepreneur mainly on the urban-rural market who did not give up the opportunity to supply large merchants exporting grain through the ports of the Danube River.