The exhibition "Man - Nature - Culture: Ancient Thrace and Medieval Bulgaria" will be officially opened on June 20, 2020 (Wednesday) at 15h00 at the Largo of Sofia.
The photo exhibition was prepared by the Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Thracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and represents the connection of ancient and medieval man with nature and its transformation into a culture of existence. This connection is visible in a number of immovable and movable cultural values from Antiquity and the Middle Ages preserved to this day. Through the historical facts and the metaphorical figurative language of the ancient and medieval monuments the general vision and the detailed expression of the ideas about the world and about the place of the man and the deities in it are revealed. The attractive posters present the Sveshtari and Kazanlak tombs, the Madara horseman, the Boyana church, the Ivanovo rock monasteries - monuments that are included in the UNESCO list of world cultural heritage.
The Heroes of Seuthes III, the tomb-cult complex "Ostrusha", the Alexander Tomb, the Zemen Monastery, the Cave of the Nymphs near the village of Madara, the megalithic complex near the village of Buzovgrad, the megalithic cult complexes near Brezovo, and of the movable cultural values - the Panagyurishte treasure are also included.
The photo exhibition is structured based on a comparison of ancient and medieval images of floral motifs, fantastic and real animals and birds, people and deities. The boards also present the landscape in which the monuments are situated, thus looking for the attitude of the people of Antiquity and the Middle Ages to the real landscape. Through the emphasis on detail in images and architecture, metaphorical language becomes more accessible to modern man.
The knowledge of the human-nature-culture relationship provides exceptional examples of the ecological thinking of different peoples. Fortunately, the Thracian and medieval Bulgarian cultures are examples of preserving ecological systems, while history gives us the opposite examples. Showing and explaining the nature-culture relationship through attractive but little-known to the general public cultural values from the past supports the training and education of attitudes towards the preservation of inherited cultural and natural wealth.
The exhibition "Man - Nature - Culture: Ancient Thrace and Medieval Bulgaria" became public thanks to the fruitful partnership of the Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Thracology with the Regional History Museum Sofia, led by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Veneta Handzhiyska. The authors of the exhibition are Prof. Dr. habil. Valeria Fol and Assist. Prof. Dr. Ruzha Popova from the IBSCT–BAS, photographer and designer of the board is Assist. Prof. Dr. Oleg Konstantinov from the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski". Equipment of the distributed research infrastructure INFRAMAT (part of the National Roadmap for Research Infrastructure), supported by contract D01-155 / 28.08.2018 of the Ministry of Education and Science was used for the preparation of the photo exhibition.