Mercia MacDermott

Mercia was born on 7 April 1927 in Plymouth, Devon, United Kingdom.[1] Her father was Geoffrey Palmer Adshead, a Royal Navy surgeon captain,[2][3] and her mother was Olive May (née  Orme) Adshead, a teacher. Due to her father's work in the navy, she spent some of her early years in Weihai, China, where Mercia learned Mandarin Chinese.[4] She grew up in Ditchling and later was educated at Westonbirt School, Gloucestershire and St Anne's College, Oxford University where she read Russian Literature.[5] In the summer of 1947, while participating in a youth brigade in Yugoslavia with other English students, she first met with Bulgarians, among whom was the writer Pavel Matev.

In the same year, Mercia visited Bulgaria for the first time to attend a celebration at the Divotino brigade members camp near the Pernik–Voluyak railway line. In 1948, she graduated with an MA degree from Oxford and once again visited Bulgaria to participate in the international youth brigade building the Koprinka Reservoir. As a foreign udarnik, Mercia was invited along with other international participants to meet Georgi Dimitrov in the Euxinograd palace on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast. While working at the Koprinka reservoir, Mercia met her future husband Alexander MacDermott. Returning to the United Kingdom in 1948, MacDermott enrolled in a Bulgarian language course at the University of London's School of Slavonic and East European Studies.[6][7]

Mercia MacDermott resided in Bulgaria from 1962 to 1989 with brief interruptions. From 1963 to 1979 she was a teacher at the English Language High School in Sofia. MacDermott subsequently lectured on the Bulgarian national liberation movement in the region of Macedonia at Sofia University's Faculty of History.[1] She was elected a foreign member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in 1987.[8] In 2007, Sofia University awarded her an Honorary Doctorate.

MacDermot's activity is described by Waller, Diane in Allcock, John B. and Young, Antonia, eds. (2000). "Mercia MacDermott: A Woman of the Frontier". Black Lambs and Grey Falcons (2nd ed.). Oxford: Berghahn Books. pp. 166–186.CS1 maint: uses editors parameter (link)

From 1958 to 1973, MacDermott was the chairwoman of the London-based English–Bulgarian Association. An honorary citizen of Karlovo and Blagoevgrad, she is also the bearer of a number of Bulgarian state decorations.[9][1]

The MacDermotts had a daughter Alexandra born in 1952. They divorced in 1964. Alexandra MacDermott, D.Phil. is a professor in physical chemistry at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. Mercia's brother Samuel Adrian Miles Adshead (1932–2009) was a distinguished sinologist and former professor of history at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.[10][11]

• A History of Bulgaria 1393–1885, Allen and Unwin, 1962, OCLC 279468[12][13][14]
• The Apostle of Freedom (A portrait of Vasil Levsky against a background of nineteenth-century Bulgaria), Allen and Unwin, 1967, OCLC 957800
• Freedom or Death (the life of Gotsé Delchev), Journeyman Press, 1978, ISBN 978-0-904526-32-5
• For Freedom and Perfection (the life of Yané Sandansky), Journeyman Press, 1988, ISBN 978-1-85172-014-9
• Bulgarian Folk Customs, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 1998, ISBN 978-1-85302-486-3
• Explore Green Men, Heart of Albion Press, 2006, ISBN 978-1-872883-94-6
• Lone red poppy, Manifesto Press, 2014, ISBN 978-1-907464-10-2
• Once upon a time in Bulgaria, Manifesto Press, 2016, ISBN 978-1-907464-16-4

• MacDermott, Mercia (1962). A History of Bulgaria 1395–1885. New York: Frederick A. Praeger. Retrieved 17 March 2019 – via Internet Archive.
• Waller, Diane (2000). "Mercia MacDermott: A Woman of the Frontier". In Allcock, John B.; Young, Antonia (eds.). Black Lambs & Grey Falcons: Women Travellers in the Balkans (2nd ed.). New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books. pp. 166–186. ISBN 1-57181-744-1 – via Google Books.
• Matthews, Stanley; Scott, Les (2000), "Chapter Thirteen: England's Greatest Ever Forward Line", The Way It Was: My Autobiography, Headline, ISBN 0-7472-6427-9 – via Google Books
• "Ms Mercia MacDermott (Biographical details)" – via The British Museum.
• Locher, Frances C., ed. (1982). "MacDERMOTT, Mercia 1927–". Contemporary Authors: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Nonfiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, and Other Fields. 106. Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Company. p. 327. ISBN 0-8103-1906-3. Retrieved 19 March 2019 – via Internet Archive.
• Mercia MacDermott publications indexed by Google Scholar
• Works by or about Mercia MacDermott at Internet Archive
• Works by or about Mercia MacDermott in libraries (WorldCat catalog)