R. R. Bolgar

Caius Coriolanus Robert Ralph Bolgar (2 June 1913 – 23 June 1985), sometimes spelt Bolgár, was an English classical scholar of Hungarian origins, a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. Known as Robert, he published most of his work as R. R. Bolgar.

Bolgar gained an international reputation with his book The Classical Heritage and its Beneficiaries (1954), his contributions to the Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, and in editing the proceedings of symposia on "Classical Influences on European Culture".

Early life King's College, Cambridge, where Bolgar spent most of his lifeCaius Coriolanus Robert Ralph Bolgar was born in London in June 1913, the son of Ernest Joseph Bolgar, who had begun life as Ernst Johann von Brokl, and his wife Erna Edith Szibenliszt. His father was an Austro-Hungarian of Sudeten-German origin who spoke both Hungarian and German. He had changed his name after being cheated out of an inheritance, and Bolgar said in later life that but for this misfortune of his father's, instead of becoming a Cambridge don, he might well have been a landowner in Moravia who supported the Nazis and been liquidated by the Russians in 1945.

At the time of his birth, Bolgar's father had a job at the Austro-Hungarian consulate in London, but at the age of one year Bolgar was taken to live in Hungary, later in Germany and France, where until the age of eleven he had his early education.

Bolgar, born in England, applied to join the British Army, but due to the status of his father he could not be commissioned. He was able to join the Suffolk Regiment as an enlisted man, and after two years was transferred to the Army Educational Corps. For eighteen months he was posted to Ranchi in the Bihar Province of British India, in command of an educational centre which suffered from many sudden transfers of its instructors. He returned to civilian life in 1946. and appendices which list the translations from Greek and Roman classical authors before 1600 and the Greek manuscripts in Italy during the fifteenth century. Bolgar notes in it that his aim was "to show the impact of the dominant ideologies of each period upon general education".

Bolgar gained a greater international reputation by his contributions to the Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, and by editing the proceedings of three international conferences on "Classical Influences on European Culture" which he organized with Patrick Wilkinson. The first, in 1969, covered the period from 500 to 1500; the second, in 1974, that from 1500 to 1700; the third, in 1977, that from 1650 to 1870. with whom he had two daughters and a son. They lived in the villages of Girton and Great Wilbraham, both near Cambridge, where Bolgar developed an interest in local history as a recreation. She then went to live with her son in Cambridge

Bolgar died at Great Wilbraham in June 1985, leaving an estate valued at £34,691. An obituary in The Times reported that his students forgave him for his chronic forgetfulness and lack of punctuality.

Selected publications R. R. Bolgar, "Rabelais's edition of the Aphorisms of Hippocrates" in Modern Language Review Vol. 35, No. 1 (January 1940), pp. 62-66

R. R. Bolgar, ed., Classical Influences on European Culture, A.D. 500-1500: Proceedings of an international conference held at King’s College, Cambridge, April 1969 (Cambridge University Press, 1971, ) R. R. Bolgar, ed., Classical Influences on European Culture, A.D. 1500–1700: Proceedings of an International Conference Held at King's College, Cambridge, April 1974 (Cambridge University Press, 1976)

R. R. Bolgar, "The Near-Christian" in Theology, Vol. 70, Issue 565 (July 1967), pp. 299–302 R. R. Bolgar, "Humanist education and its contribution to the Renaissance" in The Changing Curriculum (Routledge, 1971, )