Celebrating the 24th May

Saturday, 24.05.2025; 7:00 PM; Halls of the Bulgarian Embassy

Book a seat HERE

Dear friends, please come and celebrate together one of the most beloved Bulgarian holidays – the Day of Bulgarian Alphabet, Bulgarian Enlightenment and Culture – May 24!

The festive program includes:

• Opening of the exhibition “Stories of Glagolitic Times” by the State Institute for Culture to the MFA of the Republic of Bulgaria
• Concert by the young talented Maria Georgieva and the exceptional children from her music school
• Projection of short documentaries and subtitled video excerpts from interviews with some of the most popular and successful Bulgarian artists in the world
• Presentation of the book “Ideas without Borders – 30 interviews with world-class artists from Bulgaria”

Special guests:

Katalina Vasileva, senior expert at State Institute for Culture to the MFA of the Republic of Bulgaria

Daniel Nenchev, author of the book “Ideas without Borders”

Anna Simeonova, artist and director

 “Stories of Glagolitic Times”

Two alphabets were used in the Middle Ages in Europe: Latin (or Roman) and Greek. Those were the sacred alphabets of Christianity and all literature was written in Latin or Greek. In the late 9th century, that unwritten rule was broken once and for all. Bulgaria, one of the large states at the time that had recently converted to Christianity, started using two new scripts.

The Glagolitic alphabet was brought in by the disciples of its creators: Constantine Cyril and Methodius. Men of letters, teachers and translators were trained to use it and produced numerous translations eventually giving rise to what we now refer to as The Golden Age of Bulgarian Literature.

The Cyrillic alphabet created in Bulgaria in the late 9th century was inspired by Glagolitic. Cyrillic was taken up by writers of books and documents but was used also for everyday purposes. The two, Glagolitic and Cyrillic, coexisted in education and manuscripts in the course of two centuries before Cyrillic gained dominance. Yet even then the memory of and respect for the older alphabet did not fade.

The exhibition “Stories of Glagolitic Times” presents for the first time high- resolution images of medieval manuscripts that tell stories from Glagolitic times. They bear witness to the work of industrious scribes and the fate of invaluable texts. Those are stories distilled from the scarce evidence that has reached us thanks to the long arm of coincidence. It might be for that reason that they reveal the script in an unexpected light: not always bright, and oftentimes as the product of the writers’ strenuous effort to preserve the Word, the spirit and the faith amidst everyday vicissitudes and hardships unfathomable to people today.

“Ideas Without Borders”

The book “Ideas Without Borders – 30 Interviews with world-renowned artists from Bulgaria” collects essays and interviews in the 21st century by journalist Daniel Nenchev with the brightest representatives of Bulgarian culture around the world – Raina Kabaivanska, Kristo Yavashev, Georgi Gospodinov, Vasko Vassilev, Teodor Ushev, Alexandrina Pendachanska, Stefan Komandarev, Samuel Fintsi, etc.

The book has been nominated for the 2020 Golden Lion Awards of the Bulgarian Book Association, in the category for a publishing project with the greatest public significance and wide media interest.

The book “Ideas Without Borders” will be presented in London by the author Daniel Nenchev and the artist and director Anna Simeonova – with several short documentaries and subtitled video excerpts from interviews with some of the most popular and successful Bulgarian artists in the world.

We hope you’re able to join us!

Register soon because space is limited.