There is no other town in Bulgaria that celebrates its holiday on such a large scale and with such patriotism as Veliko Tarnovo does, Corresponding Member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Prof. Atanas Semov said during a conference dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the 1876 April Uprising at the BTA National Press Club here on Sunday.
“I am deeply impressed by everything I have seen in these few days in Veliko Tarnovo, and it is my deep conviction that Bulgaria needs Tarnovo to be veliko [great in Bulgarian]. Because Tarnovo has carried over the centuries and to this day many of these key national values that helped us rise at the end of the five-century yoke, and to survive as a people afterwards, and today to have honor and pride as a people with a very rich historical past and a people that deserves a good future,” Prof. Semov emphasized and called for Veliko Tarnovo to be recognized in the final paragraph of the Bulgarian Constitution as the country’s historical and spiritual capital.
Semov stated that the April Uprising was a powerful, long and persistently organized nationwide uprising throughout the country and that its leaders were not just rebel leaders but established statesmen who showed exceptionally democratic thinking. “In fact, it was precisely this democratic thinking of the leaders of the April Uprising that was the prerequisite for the Bulgarian people, after five centuries of terrible despotism, to create, according to some, the most democratic constitution in the world for its time, namely the Tarnovo Constitution,” Semov emphasized.
He called the April Uprising an exceptionally successful national uprising because it ignited the fire of freedom, and as a result of this fire, the Russo-Turkish War of 1878 brought the Liberation of Bulgaria.
“And there is one more important thing I would like to point out. The massacre of the monks and nuns at the Novoselsko Monastery is just as tragic as the Batak massacre. That is why, in 2019, the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church declared all those who died in both events as great martyrs of the Christian faith,” Semov pointed out.
BTA’s series of conferences are part of a joint initiative with Bulgarian National Television (BNT) and Bulgarian National Radio (BNR), called “14 Centuries of Bulgaria in Europe”, aiming to commemorate anniversaries in Bulgarian history that are significant for European history through to 2032, when 1,400 years will be marked since the establishment of the first Bulgarian state in Europe – Old Great Bulgaria. The most interesting moments from the conversations will be included in the April issue of LIK magazine, which BTA will dedicate to the 150th anniversary of the uprising.