Nadejda Stancioff

Nadejda Constanza Ivanka Gavrila Euphrosyna Stancioff Muir (Bulgarian: Надежда Димитрова Станчова, 17 January 1894 – 15 April 1957), also known as Nadezhda Stanchova Muir, was a Bulgarian diplomat and translator. She was the first woman to officially represent Bulgaria in the diplomatic field and participated in international peace conferences after World War I. She became the wife of a Scottish baronet.

Early life and family Stancioff was born on 17 January 1894 in Sofiagrad in the Ottoman vassal state of the Principality of Bulgaria.

Stancioff was the eldest daughter of Dimitar Stanchov, former Bulgarian Prime Minister and diplomatic agent of Bulgaria to the Court of Tsar Nicholas II, and the French Countess Anna de Grenaud de Saint-Christophe, Mistress of the Robes to Princess Marie Louise of Bourbon-Parma at the Bulgarian royal court. She had three siblings, Feodora (1895–1969), Ivan (1897–1972), and Helene. As a young woman Stancioff worked as an aide to her father. Her linguistic skills, political acumen and patriotism were noted by Bulgarian Prime Minister Alexander Stamboliiski, of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union, who recruited her to become his private secretary and interpreter. During this period she also promoted her brother Ivan's career, supporting his candidacy for a position in the newly established League of Nations. She became friends with İnönü, who had a Bulgarian mother-in-law. International media reported widely on Stancioff's presence at the conferences, calling her the "wonder woman of diplomacy."

In July 1922, Stamboliiski endorsed Stancioff's appointment as first secretary of the Bulgarian Embassy in Washington, D.C, United States, becoming Bulgaria's first woman diplomat in the Bulgarian Diplomatic Service.

After Stamboliiski's assassination in June 1923, Stancioff resigned from diplomatic service. After her marriage she was styled as Lady Muir. Her husband was twenty-five years her senior and the couple did not have any children. Stancioff and her husband hosted her childhood friend King Boris III of Bulgaria in 1927, and again with his wife Giovanna of Savoy in 1932. His nephew John Harling Muir, the son of his late brother James Finlay Muir, succeeded to the Muir baronetcy and Blair Drummond estate.