Priceless exhibits from the collections of the Bulgarian History Museum will be presented at events organized by the presidential administration to mark the Day of the National Awakeners
Priceless exhibits from the collections of the Bulgarian History Museum will be presented at events organized by the presidential administration to mark the Day of the National Awakeners.
November 1 has been declared Open House Day at the Presidency building, and from 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., visitors will be able to view the Coat of Arms Hall, the offices of the president and vice president, as well as temporary exhibits related to Bulgarian history, culture, and language.
The Bulgarian History Museum is providing two of its exhibits for the organized exhibition: a copy of Georgi S. Rakovski’s “Key to the Bulgarian Language” and a lead amulet with an Old Bulgarian inscription from the region of Baluk Dere, Ivaylovgrad minicipality.
Rakovski’s work was first published after his death by his nephew Kiro Stoyanov in 1880 in Odessa. The copy owned by the Bulgarian History Museum was donated by Dr. Veselin Alexandrov in 2025 and was previously owned by his great-grandfather Dimitar I. Duchevich, a Bulgarian emigrant from Ruse, a public figure and promoter of Bulgarian culture in Braila (Romania) in the 19th century, who financially supported the publication of Rakovski’s manuscript. The name of Hristo Duchevich, the donor’s grandfather, is written on the cover and first page of the book, which has been passed down from generation to generation for a century and a half.
The second exhibit from the Bulgarian History Museum, which will be displayed in the Presidency building as part of the exhibition “Codes of Identity — Faith, Language, People” is a lead amulet discovered in 2022 in the fortress in the Baluk Dere area, Ivaylovgrad municipality. The exhibit is one of the few amulets from the first decades of the 10th century inscribed with the earliest Cyrillic texts and is associated with specific historical events surrounding Tsar Simeon’s wars against Byzantium. Its distinctive feature is the canonical nature of the text, in which the bearer asks the Mother of God for intercession before God and healing from the disease “Vodnyanka” (diabetes).
After the exhibition ends, the two artifacts will once again be displayed in the halls of the Bulgarian History Museum.
