Although Croatian experts on Macedonian (especially Petar Kepeski, who translated from Bulgarian and wrote an overview of Bulgarian literature for the Zagreb History of World Literature) partly covered the field of Bulgarian studies, it was due to the arrival of a language expert from Bulgaria, Konstantin Oruš, that since 1996/97 the Bulgarian language and literature has become an autonomous program in the Slavic Department and an elective course at the Faculty level. Experts on Bulgarian language and literature, who were residing in Zagreb but had obtained their degrees at the University in Sofia Božidar Kunčev and Katja Bujanova Staneva were occasionally employed as external associates to give courses on Bulgarian language and literature. New plans and study programs within South Slavonic Studies and the development of Bulgarian Studies in undergraduate program along with planned courses in translation of Bulgarian language in graduate program of South Slavonic Studies resulted in establishing the Chair of Bulgarian Language and Literature in 2005. In academic year 2005/2006 junior researcher Marijana Bijelić was employed for modern and contemporary Bulgarian literature and in academic year 2008/2009 junior researcher Ana Vasung was employed for Bulgarian language.