site.btaNation Celebrates Awakeners' Day

November 1 (BTA) - On Monday Bulgaria marks National Awakeners' Day commemorating its writers, scholars, educators and freedom-fighters. The national flag was hoisted in an official ceremony in front of the President's Administration.

The holiday was first observed in Plovdiv, Southern Bulgaria in 1909. In 1923 it was inaugurated as a national day of remembrance for distinguished Bulgarians. Banned by the communist regime in 1945, it was reinstated in 1992. It is a day off for all educational establishments in the country.

Minister of Education and Science Prof. Nikolai Denkov extended a National Awakeners' Day greeting, the press centre of the Ministry of Education and Science said. He pointed out that awakeners are not just a thing of the past. "On this day, we not only honour the memory of Revivalists and national revolutionaries, but we also thank teachers, scientists, writers, journalists, doctors and people from other classes who have a clear national conscience," Denkov said.

"Let us thank all known and unknown, past and present national awakeners for the ideas they have passed on to us. Let us open our senses and work together for a real change in education and science: a change that will make us a more educated nation with a better future," the Education Minister said in his greeting.

The Congress of Bulgarians of Ukraine, an all-Ukrainian public organization, also marked Awakeners' Day with a greeting. "In times of spiritual desolation, national awakeners create an atmosphere of enlightenment and unity which has imbued the Bulgarian spirit with the determination to lead a struggle for state sovereignty," the organization wrote.

VE/MT