The Bulgarian scholars studying Leonard Nelson are few in number, but they are important for philosophy and culture. The main figures among them are Professor Tseko Torbov and Valentina Topuzova-Torbova, who have both exerted a very strong and heuristically important impact on the development of philosophical knowledge and especially on Kantian studies in Bulgaria. This was not only because they translated the major works of Kant into Bulgarian, but also because their scholarly efforts were ruled by the principles and logic of the philosophy of Leonard Nelson. The second period in the development of Kantian studies in Bulgaria was dominated by their works.
The first period began in the middle of the 19th century and spanned to 1925. The second period occurred between that year and the end of the 1970s and is connected with the appearance of Nelsonianism, personified by Prof. Tseko Torbov and Valentina Topuzova-Torbova as scholars and translators. The third period encompasses the development of Kantian studies since the 1980s and up to the beginning of the 21st century.
Characteristic for the first period was the gradual formation of a professional attitude to Kantian ideas and to their entry into the sphere of philosophy in Bulgaria. At that time no sustainable scheme of interpretation was formed, and between philosophers there were not even the rudiments of unity based on a connection with Kantian ideas or the modern interpretations of Kantianism. Most of the works devoted to Kant’s philosophical system were fragmentary, episodic, and were usually written in connection with other philosophical systems or problems.