Sixth National History Competition

“Memorials, Events, People- Honored, Ignored, Forgotten”
2009-2010

The Values Foundation announced the topic of the 6th National History Competition for students from 8 to 12 grades: “Memorials, Events, People- Honored, Ignored, Forgotten” in September 2009. The theme was found interesting because unlike objective history there is no one- sided memory about events and people. What we want to remember from national or family history depends on the trills and troubles of the Present. Memory has many faces- different people and communities can remember one end the same event in different ways with different opinions.
Experts, working in different scientific fields connected with the main topic, prepared the traditional information materials – leaflet and magazine, which were distributed by the Bulgarian Ministry of Education, Youth and Science to 28 regional education inspectorates as well as regional museums, libraries and archives also.

During the process of promoting the next round of the History competition we relied on our own information network built over the years consisting by public and private schools, regional museums, archives and libraries. Simultaneously the newspaper "Teacher`s Work", magazine "Dialogue in the History" and posts on websites of our partners contributed the various stages of implementation of the project to reach the largest possible range of students and their tutors. Forums such as the Annual Conference of the Association of History Teachers in Bulgaria, the September meeting of experts in the history of the country also contributed to promoting the project.

The Values Foundation realized a fruitful co-operation with the Department of Information and In-service training of Teachers – Sofia concerning six seminars for students and tutors. Such seminars were carried out in several Bulgarian towns- Sofia, Varna, Shumen, Razgrad, Targovishte and Veliko Tarnovo with lecturers from the Department.

The deadline for submitting the research papers was September 15th 2010. The number of the entries was 91 and the participants were 133. According to the researched object the received papers could be divided into the following 11 subgroups:

• Personalities
• Memorial places
• Movements and organizations
• Historical Events
• Family history
• Members of the armed forces/ Military commanders
• Clericals/ Clergy
• Foreigners
• Places of living
• Jews
• Others

The Jury under the chairmanship of Prof. Lyubomir Ognyanov (Sofia University) and members Dr. Rositza Stoyanova (Institute for Historcal researches – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), ass. Prof. Vesselin Yanchev (Sofia University), Dr. Michail Gruev (Sofia University), Vanya Elenkova (Sofia University), Petko Hristov (Institute of Ethnology and Folklore and Ethnographic Museum – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), Lyubov Filipova (National Polytechnic Museum) selected and defined the 15 prize-winners. Emel Bekirova from Targovishte (tutor Marusya Maksimova) won the First Prize with entry entitled: “The forgotten “rush”- soldiers` monument in Targovishte”.

The 6th Bulgarian National History Competition for the students between 8th to 12th was held under the auspices of the Minister of Education,Youth and Science Prof. Sergey Ignatov. The official award ceremony was held in the National Military History Museum on December 4th 2010, where Mrs. Maria Benova, the chief expert of History and Civilization in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Science handed over the prizes.

The official monetary consists of one 1st, two 2nds, three 3rds, nine encouraging and six prizes for tutors. In order to raise the official monetary award fund many institutions and organizations were contacted and it was suggested that they set up an award on their behalf for papers dealing with the activity of the respective institution or administration.

The participants received special awards and honorary diploma from: Ministry of Education, Youth and Science, Historical Faculty of Sofia University, Institute for Historcal researches – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore and Ethnographic Museum – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the National Military History Museum, and Syndicate of Bulgarian Teachers.

The Bulgarian History Teachers` Association gives the special price for the tutors. The publishing houses “Ednorog” and “Prosveta” ensure their special awards for two most successful performing schools and books for other participants.

Many others publishing houses and institutions donated books accompanied with honorary diploma for the students and their tutors. They are: Ministry of Education, Youth and Science, EASTRA Holding Group Ltd., Publishing House of the New Bulgarian University, Ednorog, Prosveta, State Agency Archives, and Military Publishing House. All students and their tutors received personally or by post certificates for attendance.

After the award ceremony the participants and their tutors were invited to a educational program organized in co-operation between the Values Foundation and the National Military History Museum– Sofia.

We selected the participants who take part in Annual Youth Academies organized by EUSTORY, whose cofounder and full member Values Foundation is since 2001.
 

WINNERS