site.btaJanuary Issue of LIK Magazine Is Dedicated to Its 60th Anniversary

"LIK at 60" is the theme of the January issue of the culture magazine of the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). Its first issue was published on January 8, 1965.

The magazine will be presented on January 23 at BTA’s MaxiM Hall. The event will be held via videoconference at the agency’s press clubs across the country.

Two hiatuses mark the history of LIK - the first in 1992, followed by a relaunch in 1999, and the second in 2013. Seven years later, in March 2022, the magazine resumed its monthly frequency.

In a preface to the January issue, BTA Director General Kiril Valchev asks if there is a need for the magazine today. "The answer lies in the five strategic goals with which Bulgaria's national news agency entered the 20s of the 21st century against the backdrop of a century and a quarter of its existence," he says. "First, LIK is needed for the truth," the Director General argues, adding as a second reason that LIK has to be available freely because of the truth it presents. "Third, LIK is needed because of 'knowledge (...) Fourth, LIK is needed today because we need the community it fosters," writes Kiril Valchev. Under number five he puts that Bulgaria needs LIK today because of memory.

"The issue dedicated to the LIK magazine poses a question that others may gloss over, but the editor-in-chief is obliged to ask and answer. Isn't it a manifestation of media narcissism for the magazine to concern itself with itself?". With these words editor-in-chief Georgi Lozanov begins his article "Media Review of Survivors". According to him, the answer to this question is ‘no’, because "its very editorial policy, which envisages the revival of the collective memory of significant personalities and events of our culture, turns it into an object of its own interest, and LIK is just such an event." 

LIK managing editor Yanitsa Hristova tells about the third stage of the magazine. "If before 1989 the publication introduced us to examples of Western culture, and after 1989 it set high standards for our own culture, now, in its third stage, LIK is looking for timeless values and examples that have left their bright imprint in its history. This is at the heart of one of the specific features of the revived magazine - each issue is dedicated to a particular theme - a significant person, event or phenomenon in the cultural and social life of the country, with a chronological presentation of how the topic has featured in the BTA’s archives," she recalls.