On May 18, the International Day of Museums, an exhibition of icons was opened, organised by Arete Foundation, the National Museum of History and Bulgarian Diplomatic Review magazine. “Army of God”, “rich, beautiful, colourful,” gathered together many representatives of the diplomatic corps, journalists and visitors. It was accompanied by the promotion of a special supplement of BDR magazine about Arete Foundation.

The exhibition was opened by the director of the museum Prof. Bozhidar Dimitrov. The idea, as he pointed out, belonged to Mr. Dimitar Ivanov, chairperson of Arete Foundation – a civil non-profit association for tracking, storing, restoring, conserving and exhibiting monuments of the Bulgarian cultural and historical heritage. Mr. Ivanov commented that the exhibition was connected with the idea that there are no barriers to love. As well as with “… the cultivation of those qualities of the man, warrior, father, lover, which evolved in the millenium-long history of the Bulgarian lands and now exist as part of the national self-awareness, traditions and beliefs of the Bulgarian people. The saint-warriors, and in this case we have limited ourselves to the few most prominent ones in the Bulgarian lands, like St. George, St. Demetrius, St. Mina, have been, according to popular belief, the defenders of the Bulgarian people and its patrons in the hardest times of Bulgarian history.

Therefore we are staging this exposition today, on the International Day of Museums, May 18, and on the eve of the Day of Bulgarian Letters, Spirituality and Culture. Although we display icons, the atmosphere is cheerful, because it is connected with our hope to maintain these traditions in the future of our people and state. However, the event would not have been as beautiful and solemn if it had not been for Bulgarian Diplomatic Review magazine.

The curator of the museum, senior research associate Teofana Matakieva commented that the exhibition was an experiment, involving icons from the National Museum of History and Mr. Dimitar Ivanov’s private collection. “The result was a nice architectonic entity with a lot of vigour. Besides, it has been compiled from the best monuments of Bulgarian icon-painting.”

In the end, Prof. Bozhidar Dimitrov thanked the famous sportsman and collector Mr. Boyan Radev for the donation, which he made to the National Museum of History on the occasion of the International Day of Museums – a renaissance icon and a marble relief from Roman times depicting a scene at a funeral feast.