REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

PERMANENT EXHIBITIONS
IN BULGARIAN MEMORIAL MUSEUMS:
POST-COMMUNIST NARRATIVES
Vera BONEVA 1
Abstract: The paper analyses the current status of the permanent exhibitions created and
maintained at memorial museums in Bulgaria. Nowadays there are almost 80 memorial museums
in the settlements and places related to the cultural and political history of the country. Most of
these museums are dedicated to memory of some eminent persons that have left distinctive traces
in national development during the last two centuries. In most cases these museums are sheltered
in the authentic houses where the corresponding figure have been lived or worked over a
significant period of time. Therefore the said type museums are called houses-museums. A part of
the memorial exhibitions are devoted to the key historical events – mainly military battles which
are crucial for the establishment of the Bulgarian statehood.
Introduction
Nowadays 201 museum institutions function in Bulgaria – national museums, regional
museums, municipality museums, private museums. They are located in different
villages, towns and cities which are related to certain historical events. Most of
municipality and ethnographical museums feature the specifics of local history, folklore
and cultural development. As a rule, museum exhibitions are thematically profiled. The
general expositions, related to the entire chronology of national history exist only in the
halls of the largest national and regional museums around the country. The biggest
museums maintain more than one museum exhibitions. Usually museum narrative is
centered on an important event, topic or person. Thus the total numbers of permanent
exhibitions in the country reaches one relatively high figure – 294. Many exposures are
linked to the settlements and regions in which there is millenary urban tradition – Sofia,
Plovdiv, Varna, Stara Zagora, Kyustendil. A significant part of the museums are
associated to archaeological and historical reserves or to complexes of immovable
cultural sites. This is also true for the seven historical sites included in the UNESCO
World Heritage List.
Usually memorial museums are devoted to an eminent public figure or a great historical
event which is represented in the exhibition and in the museum collection. These types of
cultural institutions have appeared in Bulgaria before World War II. Their network
widely expanded during the communist regime. In 1989 in the country there are about
100 memorial museums. Some of them are related to the cult of communist activists and
leftist intellectuals. Nowadays the number of this group of museums is reduced to 83.
1 State University of Library Studies and Information Technologies, Sofia, Bulgaria.