The establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate is a harbinger of freedom after five centuries of slavery. This gives the opportunity with the language, roots, religion, Orthodoxy, in combination later with the freedom to self-determine and self-govern, to form the Bulgarian nation, although at a later stage than other European nations, because of Turkish oppression.
This is what Dr. Kaloyan Pargov said – chairman of SINPI, during the opening of the exhibition “Bulgarian Exarchate - history in photos“ at the City Art Gallery of Berkovitsa. The event was held on the day of the 155th anniversary of the issuance of a firman by Sultan Abdul Aziz for the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate - February 28, 1870 and on the eve of the 147th anniversary of the Liberation of Bulgaria.
The exhibition is the work of a team at the Institute of Historical Research at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, with the assistance of the State Agency “Archives“ and is funded under a project of the Ministry of Culture. Its compilers are Prof. Alexander Grebenarov and Prof. Boryana Bujashka.
The opening of the exhibition was attended by the mayor of Berkovitsa Radoslav Naydenov, the protosingel of the Vidin Metropolis Archimandrite Antim, Mariela Pavlova – director of the Institute for Cultural Heritage Italy – Bulgaria and the director of the Museum Complex – Berkovitsa Stanislava Vitanova.
Pargov noted that the exhibition provides an opportunity to trace the entire history up to the early 1950s, when the Exarchate existed and its transformation into an independent Bulgarian Orthodox Patriarchate.
„Part of this entire history are also secular awakening figures whom we honor on November 1, who have their great merit because they were aware that, along with knowledge and enlightenment, it is very important that faith be strengthened and spread, and in the own official Bulgarian language“, emphasized the chairman of the Strategic Institute for National Policies and Ideas.
He expressed his satisfaction that the institute, which represents and is part of which are Prof. Boryana Bujashka, Prof. Vanya Dobreva and Mariela Pavlova, each in their professional capacity, can contribute to this more Bulgarians – both young and old, to see this exhibition and for it to reach more corners of Bulgaria.
“I hope it will become a permanent trend in the curricula to have more things, as it was until recently, related to Bulgarian history and Bulgarian traditions, so that generations from now on can know where they come from and where they are going. A people that does not know its past cannot properly chart its future“, Kaloyan Pargov concluded.