Tsola Dragoycheva

Tsola Nincheva Dragoycheva (Bulgarian: Цола Нинчева Драгойчева; 18 August 1898 – 26 May 1993), also known under the pseudonym Sonya, was a Bulgarian politician of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP). A member of the illegal armed wing of the party in the 1920s, she spent years in prison and as an émigré in the Soviet Union. After World War II, she held a number of high posts and was part of the nomenklatura. From 1946 until 1990, she was continuously a member of the National Assembly of Bulgaria. On 11 December 1947 she became the first female member of a cabinet in the history of the country.

Dragoycheva was born on 30 August [O.S. 18 August] 1898 in the town of Byala Slatina in Vratsa Province, northwestern Bulgaria. In 1919, she joined the Communist Party. She graduated from the high pedagogical school in Sofia and became a teacher. She took part in the communist September Uprising of 1923 and was sentenced to 15 years in prison and was deprived of her teaching rights. She was amnestied in 1924 and quickly became a member of the regional directorates of her party's armed wing in Rousse, Varna and Plovdiv. In the wake of the St Nedelya Church assault in 1925, Dragoycheva was again imprisoned and sentenced to death; the execution was postponed due to her pregnancy and her capital punishment was replaced with a life sentence in 1926. In 1932, she was again amnestied; her son, surgeon Chavdar Dragoychev, was born in prison.

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