BTA Presents Its "News on File: 1898-2023" Book in Sofia

A book presenting each of the 125 years since the establishment of the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) by one major domestic and international development was presented in BTA’s MaxiM Hall on Tuesday, on the eve of the Day of the Bulgarian Archives.

The book, titled News on File: 1898-2023, is the third in a set marking the anniversary that BTA celebrated in 2023.

The previous two books were Personal Stories, in which current and former staffers of the Agency shared their experiences, and History of BTA 1898-2023, written by Panayot Denev, who was BTA Director General between 1997 and 2002, and edited by Prof. Roumiana Preshlenova, PhD, Director of the Institute of Balkan Studies with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Prof. Preshlenova also acted as a consultant for the third and last book in the series, and Denev wrote the foreword.

THE LESSONS

“We can take away three very important things from this book. One is that you cannot hide anything from history. Even though some of the news was inaccessible to the public and could only be read in classified BTA newsletters, now that time has passed, we open these archives and see that fortunately, despite the restrictions, all the news was available in BTA, even though it was only read by those in power, both during the reign of the Bulgarian Kingdom and during the communist regime,” BTA Director General Kiril Valchev said.

He added that the second key lesson is that there is no point in trying to prevent certain news from reaching the public because time always provides the most accurate judgment of events.

The third important point is closely related: “we have a huge responsibility for the news we write today because it becomes tomorrow's history”.

AN APPROACH THAT LOOKS AT BULGARIA’S ENTIRE HISTORY

Archive State Agency President Mihail Gruev said that Tuesday’s event is dedicated not only to this book but the entire trilogy, which is a set of interconnected texts that reveals BTA’s 125-year history.

Gruev pointed out that his team has restored the oldest BTA newsletters. "One gets a special kind of kick from picking up and leafing through newsletters that are more than 120 years old," he said. He said that an ingenious approach has been adopted, adding that it looks at the entire history of Bulgaria in the context of world history.

Digitization of the archive is currently underway. “It is done year by year, and we are currently working on the second half of the last century,” Valchev said. He added that in parallel with the archive digitization, a process of its physical relocation is also underway and it will be completed in time for BTA’s 127th anniversary at the latest.

Valchev stressed that the three books of BTA's history are available on BTA’s website

CHALLENGES

Prof. Roumiana Preshlenova said that the third book of the set was the most challenging, adding that selecting just one domestic and international development for each year was a demanding task.

Genka Ivanova, head of Home News, said that a large number of people from all of the agency’s departments have contributed to the book. She and Milena Georgieva, senior editor at the Reference Department, were tasked with bringing the publication to life.

Ivanova said that a list of the events in Bulgaria and the world had been compiled with the help of various agency departments. She noted that what was really challenging was finding BTA news items for all these events. Additional news items were found in the process, she added.

WHAT’S NEXT

Valchev said that the BTA archives are yet to be examined and made accessible to the public. Some of them have already appeared in LIK magazine, which will mark its 60th anniversary in 2025.

The BTA Director General also spoke of an idea to publish archives on various topics jointly with the Archive State Agency, in cooperation with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and universities.

“Next year, we will probably publish three books dedicated to the World Meeting of Bulgarian Media,” Valchev said, adding that the 20th edition of the forum will take place in 2025. “The idea is to have a book presenting the 20 meetings, to include personal stories of the people who have participated in these events, and to try to produce a catalogue presenting Bulgarian media around the world,” Valchev announced.

/NF/