Museum of National Revival - Varna

Overview

On October 4, 1959, the Museum of the Revival was opened in the old building of the First Bulgarian School at 9 July Street. The building was built in 1861-1862 with funds raised by patriotic Bulgarian merchants and craftsmen; in 1865 it also housed the first Bulgarian church “St. Arch. Mikhail ”. In the same building in 1870 was opened the first Bulgarian community center in Varna, there is also the seat of the Bulgarian municipality. In the years before the Liberation it became the only center of the socio-political, spiritual and cultural life of the Bulgarians of the city. After the liberation of Varna (July 27, 1878) the building of the first Bulgarian school in the city was used for some time again as a girls' school, for several years as a primary school, and later as an economic school of the "Mother" society. Since the beginning of our century after the construction of new schools and churches, the building has been abandoned and neglected. Used as a church, at first only on holidays and Sundays, and later every day, it became a parish only in 1936. In the early 1930s, renovation of the building and renovation were planned, which began in 1932. With great effort in the same year, the entire east wall was repaired, partly the iconostasis. In 1933-1934 they were replaced later. After declaring the building a cultural monument and the preliminary decision that a small exposition for the church-national struggles before the Liberation would be arranged on its front floor, the District People's Council covered almost all the costs of the renovation. In the spring of 1958, when the restoration and strengthening of the church was completed, the District Council decided to renovate the upper floor and, in accordance with the original project, to arrange a museum exposition there. A new staircase has been made connecting the two floors. The renovation was completed in 1959, but the finishing works were completed in July 1860 and on July 27 the museum was opened for visits. Prof. Dr. Velko Tonev (1933-2004), one of the greatest researchers of the Bulgarian Revival, was appointed the first curator of the museum. The exposition is arranged on both floors, and in one of the halls on the second floor the classroom of the mutual school has been restored. The restoration was designed by Minko Gechev, a research associate at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. After the preparation of a thematic structure and an exposition plan, in the spring of 1963 the implementation of a complete and completed exposition for the Renaissance in Varna and the Varna region began. The artistic design of the new exhibition is assigned to the artist Stoyan Atanasov, who despite the limited area, manages to realize the most important moments of the thematic structure. The exposition was finally completed in September 1963. In it, with the help of engravings, photographs, weapons, documents, old printed books and other materials, the Renaissance era in this area was basically recreated. An essential part of the fund is the collection of church utensils, prints and icons, which, in addition to the Museum of the Revival were also exhibited in the church-museum "St. Atanas ”and for the collection and preservation, of which Prof. V. Tonev and the artist Petar Branev have the main merit. Most of the museum materials were collected by the old museum workers - the Shkorpil brothers, Archimandrite Innocent and others and were kept until 1960 in the Archaeological Museum, from where they were transferred to the Museum of the Renaissance.