National Historical Museum (Bulgaria)

The National Historical Museum ( Bulgarian Национален исторически музей / Nazionalen istoritscheski Musej; literally: National History Museum) in Sofia is one of the largest museums in Bulgaria. It shows a comprehensive overview of the Bulgarian history and culture from prehistory through the ancient times to the present day.

History

The museum was founded on 5 May 1973 decision of the Bulgarian government and housed in its collection more than 650,000 pieces, of which about 10% are issued.

The first exhibition was opened on the occasion of the 1,300 th anniversary establishing Bulgaria 1984. The exhibition was initially at 10,000 m2 in the Palace of Justice in Sofia, right in the town center, on Vitosha Boulevard. The daughter of the former Communist Party Todor Zhivkov and heads of state - Lyudmila Schiwkowa - was then Minister of Culture and deals with the alignment of the celebrations to 1300 Years of Bulgaria and with the founding of the museum. She sat thanks to the backing of her father through against the Minister of Justice, so that the Justice Department had to move out from the representative building of the Palace of Justice in Sofia in order to make way for the newly created Museum.

After the end of the communist era in Bulgaria in 1990, the Museum by decision of the Council of Ministers in April 1997 just outside the Sofia ring road ( Bulg Околовръстен was laid in the spring of 2000 in the former presidential residence of Todor Zhivkov by Bojana, on the southern outskirts of Sofia, път / Okolowrasten pat), at the foot of the Vitosha Mountain. This building with the address " House # 1 " ( Bulg " Дом номер 1") became the best-guarded museum in Bulgaria. The new exhibition was officially opened by the Prime Minister Ivan Kostov on July 29, 2000. The massive museum building in Boyana, Built in 1974, the former government residence in the middle of a park, has an exhibition area of ​​6,000 m2.

From the foyer leads a wide staircase in the two exhibition floors. The first exhibition floor has a very large height, as they were designed to be representative rooms for state receptions in the Government Building.

The main exhibition covers five halls:

• Prehistory ( 7th to 2nd millennium BC)
• Ancient Thrace ( end of the 6th century BC to 6th century AD)
• Bulgarian Middle Ages: First ( 681-1018 ) and Second ( 12th to 14th century ) Bulgarian Empire
• Bulgarian territories in the 15th and 19th centuries (see Bulgarian rebirth)
• Third Bulgarian Empire (1879-1946)

Other halls are devoted to the excavations at Apollonia, numismatics, and especially the folklore.

The museum organizes exhibitions abroad over the ancient Thracian and Bulgarian culture. Similarly, a scientific anthology is published annually, as well as catalogs of the museum collection.

The National Historical Museum is listed as number 58 among the 100 national tourist objects in Bulgaria, which was created by the Bulgarian Tourist Office.

Exhibits

Very valuable is the collection of archaeological finds from the Palaeolithic to the Middle Ages. One of the gems of the collection is the gold treasure of Panagjurischte from the 4 / 3 Century BC, but which is owned by the Museum in Plovdiv and issued only temporarily here.

The museum has departments of archeology, history and ethnography. The collections are divided into the following topic areas and eras:

• Paleolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic
• Bronze age
• Iron Age
• Roman
• Late Antiquity
• Early Middle Ages ( 7th - 9th century)
• High Middle Ages (10th - 12th century)
• The late Middle Ages (13th - 14th century)
• The late Middle Ages (15th- 17th century)
• Numismatics
• Orders and Awards
• Jewelry
• Embroidery
• Arms
• Uniforms, clothing, accessory
• Aspire
• Matter
• Church Art
• Documents and photos from the time of the Bulgarian Revival
• Documents and photographs from the period 1878-1944
• Documents and photos of the recent history of Bulgaria
• Attachments
• Everyday objects
• Old and new printed matter; old foreign-language printed materials
• Periodicals from the period 1878-1944
• Periodicals from the recent history of Bulgaria
• Posters
• Maps
• Product samples
• Performing and Applied Arts
• Furniture
• Cinema, Photo and Audio Archive
• Philately
• Flags
• Siegel ( sphragistics )
• Coat of arms

Administrative structures

The museum has the following departments:

• Public relations
• Bulgarian territories and antiquity
• History ( Bulgarian Renaissance 18th-19th century; modern Bulgarian history 19th-20th Century )
• Archeology ( prehistoric, ancient Thrace, classical and Roman Archaeology, Medieval Archaeology, Numismatics )
• Art history, ethnography and Interdisciplinary Research
• Museum collection (documents, archives, collections )
• Picture Collection ( negatives and digital images of the exhibits)
• Central Laboratory for Conservation and Restoration
• Spatial artistic design and technical equipment (audio - video presentation, studio for exhibition design, technical maintenance)
• Administration and Finance
• Surveillance and Security

Branches

• Boyana Church
• Museum ship Radezky at Kozloduy
• Semen Monastery "Saint Joan teolog " ( Bulg Земенски манастир )
• Museum "Bulgaria and the Slavic world " (the former Museum of the Bulgarian- Soviet Friendship )

Directors

• Straschimir Dimitrov ( June 1974 to 31 December 1975)
• Emil Zanow ( 1 January to 31 August 1976)
• Vasil Gjuselew (September 1, 1976 - December 31, 1977 )
• Antscho Antschew ( January 1978 - August 1983)
• Simeon Damjanow ( August 1983 - October 1985)
• Rumen Katintscharow ( November 1985 - December 1994 )
• Bozhidar Dimitrov ( December 1994 - 1st August 1998)
• Ilya Prokopow (4 August 1998 - February 6, 2001 )
• Teofana Matakiewa - Lilkowa ( February 2001 - December 2001)
• Bozhidar Dimitrov ( December 2001 - August 2009 )
• Tsvetana Kjosewa ( August 2009 - 2011)
• Bozhidar Dimitrov ( since 2011 )