site.btaBulgarian National Library Hosts Exhibition on Benjamin Franklin, Influence on Bulgarian National Revival

An exhibition called "Benjamin Franklin and the Bulgarian National Revival in the 19th Century" was opened on Friday at the National Library in Sofia.

The exhibition marks the 320th anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the US, and contains various documents from the National Library in Sofia. It consists of 13 panels in Bulgarian and English, which are divided into two groups. The first thematic group of panels is entitled America Discovers the Bulgarians and shows the relations between the two nations in the fields of culture, education, religion and economy. The second group of panels is called The Bulgarians and Benjamin Franklin and reveals the enormous influence that the life and work of one of the fathers of the American nation had on the revolutionaries during the Bulgarian National Revival.

"Franklin is among those who become an example to follow, even when he seemed infinitely distant from his followers in time and space. His life and literary legacy encouraged an entire generation of Bulgarian intellectuals, educators, teachers, politicians and public figures", the National Library pointed out, adding that Bulgarians who lived in the 19th century, on a different continent, in one of the provinces of the Ottoman Empire, in a completely different social and cultural environment, saw in Franklin a model for life, activity and way of thinking, which they wanted to transfer and develop in Bulgaria.

The exhibition is part of the programme of the US Embassy in Sofia on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence and the creation of American statehood.