Ivan Minchov Vazov (Bulgarian: Иван Минчов Вазов) (June 27, 1850 - September 22, 1921) was a Bulgarian poet, novelist and playwright, often referred to as "the Patriarch of Bulgarian literature". He was born in Sopot, a town in the Rose Valley of Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire).

The exact date of Vazov's birth is disputed. His parents, Saba and Mincho Vazov, both had a lot of influence on the young poet.

After finishing primary school in Sopot, Mincho send his son to Kalofer, appointing him assistant teacher. Having done his final exams in Kalofer, the young teacher returned to Sopot to help in his father's grocery. The next year his father send him to Plovdiv to Naiden Gerov's school. There Vazov made his first steps as a poet.

He returned to Sopot and then went to Olteniţa in Romania to study trade despite his lack of interest in it. He was immersed in literature. Soon he left Olteniţa and went to Brăila where he met Hristo Botev, a Bulgarian revolutionary and poet. From Brăila he went to Galaţi to his uncle where he met Botev again.

Don Juan (Spanish, or "Don Giovanni" in Italian) is a legendary, fictional libertine whose story has been told many times by many authors. El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra (The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest) by Tirso de Molina is a play set in the fourteenth century that was published in Spain around 1630. Evidence suggests it is the first written version of the Don Juan legend. Among the best known works about this character today are Molière's play Dom Juan ou le Festin de pierre (1665), Byron's epic poem Don Juan (1821), José de Espronceda's poem El estudiante de Salamanca (1840) and José Zorrilla's play Don Juan Tenorio (1844). Along with Zorrilla's work (still performed every year on November 2nd throughout the Spanish-speaking world), arguably the best known version is Don Giovanni, an opera composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte, first performed in Prague in 1787 (with Giacomo Casanova probably in the audience) and itself the source of inspiration for works by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Alexander Pushkin, Søren Kierkegaard, George Bernard Shaw and Albert Camus.