site.btaPetar Bogdan’s 1667 Manuscript to Be Presented at Presidency

A reproduction of a manuscript by Petar Bogdan Bakshev (1601-1674), “On the Antiquity of the Father’s Land and on the Bulgarian Things”, will be presented in the Coat of Arms Hall of the Presidency on May 21, said the President’s press secretariat.

This is first historical treatise dedicated to Bulgaria, written in Latin and completed around 1667. Within 200 pages, the manuscript examines the Christian past and present of the Bulgarian lands and aims to raise support in the then Catholic Europe for the liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule.

On the eve of the Day of the Holy Brothers Cyril and Methodius, of the Bulgarian alphabet, education and culture and of Slavic literature – May 24, the reproduction will be shown for the first time to the Bulgarian public. Bulgaria received the historical work at the initiative of head of State Rumen Radev and with the assistance of the Italian authorities, the leadership of the Gallerie Estensi and the municipality of Modena.

The manuscript "On the Antiquity of the Father’s Land and on the Bulgarian Things" was completed around 1667 and predates Paisii Hilendarski's "Istoriya Slavyanobolgarskaya" [Slav-Bulgarian History] of 1762 by about a century. For a long time neither the original manuscript nor a printed copy of the tractate were found, and it was not until the 1970s that the historian, Prof. Bozhidar Dimitrov, discovered the editor's notes related to the manuscript of Petar Bogdan.

At the end of 2017, Prof. Lilia Ilieva discovered the complete manuscript of the oldest history of Bulgaria in the University Library of the Italian city of Modena.

Under the auspices of the President, the National Archaeological Museum will present the manuscript on May 21 at 6 pm. The event is dedicated to the 155th anniversary of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the 145th anniversary of the National Library. The presentation of the manuscript is accompanied by two poster exhibitions – "On the Antiquity of the Father's Land and on Bulgarian Affairs", dedicated to the history of the manuscript by Dr. Tzvetan Vassilev, Associate Professor at the Department of Classical Philology at Sofia University and translator of the manuscript and the exhibition "Catholics in Bulgaria XVII-XX century", by Radoslav Spasov from the National Library, which tells about the contribution of the Catholic community to the preservation of the spirit of freedom and national consciousness in the Bulgarian lands and to the restoration of the Bulgarian statehood. The manuscript will be displayed at the National Archaeological Museum from May 22 to September 22.