site.btaUPDATED Japanese-Language Issue of BTA's LIK Magazine Presented to Sofia University Students
The Japanese-language issue of BTA's LIK magazine, which came out in April and was presented at the Bulgarian pavilion of Expo 2025 in Osaka on May 18, showcases the remarkable history of Bulgaria’s presence at world expositions, said BTA Director General Kiril Valchev on Friday, meeting with Japanese-language students from Sofia University.
Valchev recalled that the magazine's presentation in Osaka was attended by Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, who was visiting Expo 2025.
He noted that this is the first periodical ever to present Bulgaria comprehensively in Japanese. “It was a huge challenge for us. Do you know what it is like to publish something you cannot understand at all?” said Valchev. He noted that BTA used two excellent translators for the project, but even so, the text was sent to the Bulgarian Embassy in Tokyo, where their technical staff, who are Japanese, read it to verify its accuracy. The original translation was made by Prof. Nako Stefanov and an expert recommended by him, Petko Slavov.
“Your colleagues in Japan told me that they will use the three versions of this LIK issue – English, Japanese and Bulgarian – to study Bulgarian. I understand that you are doing something similar here with the Japanese-language version,” noted Valchev.
He said that the remarkable history of Bulgaria’s presence at world expos, recounted in LIK, began in the mid-19th century. Perhaps the most famous story concerns Bulgaria’s participation at the 1893 Chicago expo in the United States, which author Aleko Konstantinov attended. He documented both his journey and the Bulgarian pavilion at the expo.
The BTA Director General invited the students present at the meeting to work at the national news agency, outlining the opportunities for development in various BTA departments.
LIK editor-in-chief Georgi Lozanov said that during the communist era, Bulgaria had a limited set of instruments to maintain intercultural communication with the Western world. LIK was one of those few instruments. And now, with its April 2025 issue, the magazine is performing the same mission of intercultural communication, Lozanov said.
Stela Zhivkova, chief assistant professor at Sofia University's Centre for Eastern Languages and Studies, said BTA did something that the Centre could only dream of. The news agency made in-depth research on world expos and Bulgaria's involvement in them. "What is even better, it is translated into Japanese, and we can learn from it how to do Bulgarian-Japanese translation," the scholar said.
/TM/
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