site.btaProfessor Donates Copy of Cartographic Plan of Tarnovo from 1857 to City's Regional Historical Museum

A copy of a map of Tarnovo [currently Veliko Tarnovo, North Bulgaria] from 1857 was donated to the local Regional History Museum by Ivan Roussev, a corresponding member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and a Professor at the University of Economics in Varna, the Museum said on Monday.

The cartographic work is valuable both as a wealth of historical information and for its artistic merit. The original plan is kept by the French Professor Bernard Lory from the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales in Paris, who came across it by chance at Bouquinistes [booksellers of used and antiquarian books] in the French capital a few years ago, Roussev explained. 

The copy of the cartographic plan was received by Veliko Tarnovo Regional History Museum Director Ivan Tsarov. It was donated along with all the accompanying scientific documentation about the discovery and study of the map in question by Roussev and Lory. 

The map was made by the Breton geographer and cartographer Guillaume Lejean (1824-1871). Visiting the old Bulgarian capital in the spring of 1857, he collected information, which he published and with the help of which he drew the plan. This is the best drawn cartographic plan of Tarnovo from the 19th century, the Museum stressed. On it are delineated the boroughs of the old city, which are still being studied by researchers of this period.

During the Middle Ages the city was called Tarnovo. In 1965, "Veliko" [Great] was added to the name in honour of the city's fame at the time when it was the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire.