A new campaign of “My Bulgarian History”
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The project “My Bulgarian history” began on 2nd April 2015, the birth date of G.S. Rakovski. The first stage of the project aimed to collect the less popular and unknown stories, hidden behind the corners of the two streets in Sofia and Veliko Tarnovo named after him. The project accomplished this first goal and now the map reveals the layers of the past in the many stories collected for those streets.
The start of the project on the 2nd of April 2015
The main phase of the project started in June 2015. The project team started collecting stories from other cities and streets, gradually enriching the map with many unknown stories from all around Bulgaria. “My Bulgarian history” became the very place where everyone can contribute to the creation of our common story of the past. The map started turning into an adventurous mixture of personal tales, historical facts, less popular stories, related to different places in Bulgaria. “My Bulgarian history” became the location where stories about interesting encounters, former urban legend stars, ancient strongholds outside of popular tourist routes can be found. At the same time, the platform maps important dates from Bulgarian history, monuments of national heroes, and stories about important Bulgarian families. The map gradually became bringing together stories, related to Bulgaria from outside the country borders. Tales about places named after Bulgarian cities, Bulgarian monuments and Bulgarians, living outside of the country are assembled in the virtual historical archive. Mihail Vaklinov, Filip Filipov and Simeon Popov - the historians of the project – provided additional stories from outside Bulgaria, enriching even further the variety of the historical map of “My Bulgarian history”. It became the home of the stories for immigrant support communities in North America and South-American success stories of people with Bulgarian origin.
“My Bulgarian history” managed to build partnerships with projects also working in the direction of revealing the Bulgarian history and making it more popular and accessible.
“Bulgarian history” association became the first official partner of the project, providing interesting facts that find their place on the map. In June 2015, the urban researchers from “Fading Sofia” also joined the partnership network of the project. Thanks to them the stories of 10 “fading” Sofia houses such as The Corner house, The Stone Foundations house and The Silent house found their place on the map. In October 2015, a few personal stories from Plovdiv, provided by our partners “ONE” as part of the “Shumi Maritza” installation during One Architecture Week 2015, were also mapped on the platform.
Разходката из „изчезващите къщи“ на СофияIn September 2015, the project started organizing the “Sedenkite” events. The initiative gathers the local community in different Bulgarian cities, with the support of local museums and cultural institutions, to digitalize the town and regional history in real-time. During “Sedenkite”, the participants present different interesting historical facts from the region, together with tales of local families, heroes, houses, and streets. “Sedenkite” in Bansko and Razlog brought together the stories of battles, families, ancient settlements, and important people. Together with the Regional Historical Museum and “Causes and Undertakings” community, the virtual historical map of Blagoevgrad was also created during the third “Sedyanka” event.
"Sedyankata" in Bansko
Video from the event in Blagoevgrad
Since April 2015, the map of “My Bulgarian history” has gathered over 350 stories from Bulgaria and all around the world. After upgrading the platform with search engine functionality in November 2015, the navigation on the map became easier. The mobile responsive version which was also enabled at the same time now allows uploading stories from any location and any mobile device. The Facebook page of the project with over 2500 followers is where all the news, events, and initiatives of the project are published. The future plans of “My Bulgarian history” include other events, thematic campaigns, and partner initiatives.
The project slogan is “Your history is our common history”.
It represents the belief that the personal representation of the past and its digitalization are the possible paths to understanding our history. This knowledge can teach us those important lessons that can help us pave our way to the future together. The future, that can provide opportunities for developing both our personal potential and one of Bulgarians – as people, united by the idea of creating the story of our common past.
