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Petar Vodenicharov (PhD in General and Comparative Linguistics), is a professor (Assistant Professor, 1990; Associate Professor, 2001) at Neofit Rilski South-West University -  Blagoevgrad, where he lectures on Ethno-, Socio- and Psycholinguistics. He is also deputy dean of the Faculty of Philosophy (since 2001), was a graduate lecturer in ethnolinguistics at the Paisii Hilendarski Plovdiv University (1995-1997) and he guest lectures at a number of European universities. P. Vodenicharov has many specializations from various European academic institutions (North Caucasus Federal University, Zagreb University, Graz University, Copenhagen University, Bergen University).

A leading Bulgarian language policy specialist, P. Vodenicharov examines language power relations by focusing on the language of marginalized, stigmatized groups. Vodenicharov defines the Anti-Sprache of these "dumb"/speechless/sprachlosige or "not heard" groups as a form of resistance.

As a member of the board of directors of the International Balkan Seminar in Blagoevgrad (1991 -) and of the non-governmental organization the Balkan Society for Autobiography and Social Communication (BSASC; since its foundation in 1996), Vodenicharov actively participates in the creation of "identity archives" of oral life histories, visual materials, unknown documents from state archives of specific “minorities” (sexual, social, ethnic, "racial" groups). Such “identity archives” present alternatives to the dominant "monumental” state representations on history.
P. Vodenicharov participates in a number of regional, national and international projects (Digital Archives - Science and Information Complex, Shared Memory Places - Digital Map of Monuments - projects for the Science Fund of the Ministry of Education and Science, To Come Out of the Shadow Supporting the Social Integration of People Threatened with Marginalisation Caused by Their Nationality (2011-2013, Grundtvig Program), Politics of Memory Cultures of the Russian-Ottoman War 1877-1878: From Divergence to Dialogue 7th Marie Curie Framework Program (2012-2016, FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IRSES Marie Curie Action International Research Staff Exchange Scheme), Knowledge Exchange and Academic Cultures in Humanities: Europe and the Black Sea Region, late 18th - 21st Centuries (2017-2020, Horizon2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Rise), among others.

The main and shared goal of the scholars united by the BSASC can be conveyed through the sub-title of one of their projects and publications: Democratic Publicity Through the Right of History.

Ondřej Vojtěchovsky, Czech historian and professor at Charles University in Prague, is a specialist in contemporary Yugoslav and Czech history, especially the post-war period. He completed his Doctoral dissertation on the topic of the Yugoslav Cominformist emigration in Prague. By virtue of his research, Vojtěchovsky met some of the members of the Yugoslav Cominformists in Prague, among them Ivan Sinanovič, who handed him over the collection of leaflets in 2011. These leaflets form now the Yugoslav Cominformists in Prague collection which is located in Vojtěchovský's apartment in Prague.

Anton Vovk was a Slovenian cleric, the (arch)bishop of Ljubljana. He was born in the same house as the famous Slovenian poet France Prešeren (1800-1849), because they were related through Vovk's grandmother. He attended Gymnasium in Kranj, and entered the seminary at Šentvid. He was ordained a priest in 1923. He served as chaplain in Metlika and Tržič. He became the pastor in Tržič. In 1940 he became a canon. Throughout the Second World War he presided over a committee tasked with helping priests who fled from the German-occupied part of Slovenia to the Ljubljana Province. In 1944 he became the rector of the seminary. 

In June of 1945 he became the vicar of the Ljubljana Diocese, because Bishop Gregorij Rožman fled the country ahead of the takeover by the communist regime. On December 1, 1946, he was consecrated as auxiliary bishop of Ljubljana. He was attacked at the Novo mesto rail station on January 20, 1952, by communist activists, who poured gasoline on him and tried to set him on fire.  Anton Vovk died on July 7, 1963. 

Vovk's primary concern and job was to lead the Ljubljana (arch)diocese as a bishop (Pope John XXIII elevated the Ljubljana Diocese to an archdiocese on December 22, 1961). He was the creator or receiver of most of the archival materials contained in the Anton Vovk Collection. He considered the preservation of the collected records so important that he kept the existence of his own diary secret even from his closest collaborators. The communist regime saw him as an enemy, so an attack was prepared against him by pouring gasoline on him and burning him. Vovk himself did not publicly challenge the regime, except when he publicly preached Catholic teachings. The purpose of collecting the materials was to preserve them for the generations.

Ivan Vrona was born on September 29, 1887 in Otrocz, Chełm county in the Lublin guberniia of the Russian Empire. After spending two years in exile in Siberia for revolutionary activities, he studied law at Moscow University (1910-14) and art at Konstantin Yuon’s studio in Moscow (1912-14) and later at the Ukrainian Academy of Arts in Kyiv (1918-20). In 1918, he joined the Borotbist faction of the Ukrainian Party of Socialists Revolutionaries and in 1920 the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine. In 1921, he was elected to the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee.

In the 1920s, Vrona helped organize the Kyiv Art Institute and served as its first rector. He also taught there in 1930-1933 and 1945-1948. He was a founder and leader of the Association of Revolutionary Art of Ukraine (ARMU), whose program he outlined in a publication titled The Art of the Revolution and ARMU in 1926. Vrona also served as director of the Kyiv Museum of Western and Eastern Art and chief inspector of art education for the People’s Commissariat of Education. His art criticism was published in the periodicals “Zhyttia I Revoliutsiia (“Life and Revolution”) and “Krytyka” (“Criticism”).

In 1933, Vrona was arrested and deported to a western Siberian labor camp. He was released in 1936 and rehabilitated in 1943. After being allowed to return to Ukraine in 1944, he became a research associate of the Institute of Fine Arts, Folklore, and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR and wrote monographs on the artists Karpo Trokhymenko (1957), Mykhailo Derehus (1958), and Anatol Petrytsky (1968) as well as two chapters for volume 5 of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR.