site.btaSofia City Library Celebrates 145th Anniversary of Sofia Becoming Capital with Series of Events

The Sofia City Library is celebrating the 145th anniversary of Sofia becoming the capital of Bulgaria with a series of events on April 3 and 4, the Library said in a press release on Tuesday.

A photo-documentary exhibition "The Mayors of Sofia" presents the mayors of Sofia from the establishment of the Sofia City Council until today. The exhibition shows milestones from their work and their achievements. The opening of the exhibition on April 3 includes books and collections of documents from the library collection, the biographies of Dimitar Petkov, Gen. Vladimir Vazov and Eng. Ivan Ivanov and other Sofia mayors, original editions that present iconic buildings, monuments, institutions and their history.

Among the rare books on display are "A Short Historical Review of the Sofia Municipality" by the head of the administrative department of the municipality Alexander Tatsov (1932), "Our Capital, Its Improvement and Decoration" by Assen Kermekchiev (1907), "Old Sofia" (1941) by Eng. Radoslav Mihailov, former deputy mayor from the mayoral team of Eng. Ivan Ivanov, "Alexandrovska Hospital", jubilee books of the First Male High School (1904) and the First Female High School in Sofia (1904). 

Later on Wednesday, the Sofia City Library organizes another guided tour among the collections of its literary museum "Notable Bulgarians". The theme is "Sofia in the works of Simeon Radev, Dr. Konstantin Stoilov, Kiril Hristov".

A round table is also dedicated to writing about the capital at the Sofia Library on April 4. The discussion with the theme "My Sofia" will be attended by prof. Kiril Topalov and Prof. Dr. Toni Nikolov, who are the winners of the prize for the most interesting book about Sofia established within the annual awards of the Sofia City Library, and Dr. Petar Velichkov, Dr. Aleksandar Gerov, Mariana Ekimova-Melnishka, Pavlina Delcheva-Vezhinova, Magdalena Gigova, Georgi-Momchil Popov, Zdravko Petrov. The moderator of the discussion is Viktor Topalov. The round table is accompanied by an exposition of the authors' books dedicated to Sofia.

The first informal club of writers, researchers and journalists writing about Sofia is planned to be established.