The documentary exhibition “Will for State-Building” was opened in the Bulgarian Parliament on April 15, on the initiative of the General Department of Archives at the Council of Ministers. It outlines the most important stages in building the modern Bulgarian state and pays tribute to the work of its founders. The opening was attended by many MPs, ambassadors and diplomats. The Chairman of the National Assembly Prof. Ognyan Gerdjikov highlighted that the displayed materials and photos show the Bulgarians’ aspiration to form a single, modern and independent state. “Today it is quite relevant to remind everyone of our forefathers’ zeal to take up a fit place among the free and democratic European nations, especially now that Bulgaria is on the threshold of joining united Europe.”

The Head of the General Department of Archives Atanas Anastasov presented the exhibition as follows:

“The idea is to trace the revival and reinforcement of the Bulgarian state system by virtue of the unquestionable testimony of documents dating from the second half of the 19 c. and the early 20 c. The displayed materials, which are kept in Bulgarian and foreign depositories, illustrate the tough formation of the Bulgarian State, the striving for independence and the Bulgarians’ will for construction.

The over 300 documents contain archival evidence about the successful struggle of the Bulgarian Church for church independence, about the preparations for opening the Constituent Assembly, about the debates and opinions on the draft Statute of the Bulgarian Principality. The preserved reports and dispatches by Russian, English, French and Austria-Hungarian diplomats in Bulgaria manifest the Great Powers’ attitude to the convention, the opening and the work of the Constituent Assembly, as well as to the subsequent acts of the Union of Eastern Rumelia and the Bulgarian Principality and the declaration of independence.

Some of the most impressive exhibits are the originals of the Turnovo Constitution, the so-called “Silver Constitution” of 1911, the Manifesto on Bulgaria’s independence and of Bulgaria’s first international agreements with other European countries. Alongside these, there are decrees, correspondence, pictures and photo albums of Bulgarian participations in trade exhibitions.

Bulgarian history is followed from Paisiy, Levski and Oborishte to the Turnovo Constituent Assembly, the first cabinet, the first ministries and the Union, when the dreams of millions of Bulgarians for a free, sovereign and independent Bulgaria came true.

By demonstrating today the first swift and confident steps of the young Bulgarian state along the road of state-building, we have tried to pay tribute to the work of its founders to whom we are profoundly grateful and indebted.