In Rome, a photo exhibition portraying Bulgaria in the early 20th century

For an entire month, from Dec. 12, 2019 to Jan. 12, 2020, the Museo di Roma in Trastevere opens its doors to Bulgaria Through the Looking Glass of Time, a photographic exhibition created based on the development of 36 original glass plates dating from the 1920s and 1930s.

The images on display capture valuable evidence of Bulgaria’s culture, traditions and customs. The project of the “Values” Foundation is proposed in Rome at the Museum of Rome in Trastevere thanks to the support of the Bulgarian Ambassador to Italy Todor Stoyanov and in collaboration with theBulgarian Institute of Culture in Rome.

After the extraordinary success of the exhibition last spring in Sofia, at the National Art Gallery, the Roman exhibition aims to celebrate the 140th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Bulgaria and Italy (an anniversary that coincides with the appointment of Sofia as the capital of Bulgaria) by proposing an interactive installation with 3D projections and multisensory paths.

The initiative is being implemented as part of the Republic of Bulgaria’s EU Communications Strategy for 2019.

Curators Irina Dilkova and Milena Kaneva read the Bulgarian exhibition project in a multimedia key: using virtual reality captions, QRCodes and 3D projections they offer a hi-tech guise, suggesting a stimulating contrast with the era told by the imagesand jumping on its strong evocative power. In fact, the viewer can embark on an immersive journey into the bucolic world of Bulgaria 100 years ago, through a multimedia tour consisting of 36 precious photographic plates describing the era in which the pictures are set, from historical, ethnographic, geographical, and diplomatic perspectives.

Projected on the walls of the museum, the glass plates tell, in their animated version, places and customs of Bulgaria in the 1920s and 1930s.

These ancient photographic artifacts had been preserved, wrappedin faded typed sheets of paper: these were diplomatic missives, Reuterso BTA newsletters from the 1920s and 1930s.

The most interesting news items recounting the vicissitudes of Europe at the time were printed in the format of newspapers of the time and are part of the exhibition tour. Interesting and evocative is the historyof these photographic plates.

It all began when Nadezhda Bliznakov De Micheli Vitturi, an Italian aristocrat of Bulgarian origin, met Antonina Stoyanova, then First Lady of Bulgaria. It was 1996, and he decided to make her a gift of a family treasure: 36 glass plates, ancient photographic plates that belonged to her grandfather Marko Bliznakov, one of the founders of the country’s port business. The young Bliznakov had graduated from Belgium with a degree in engineering and was later sent, at the behest of Prince Ferdinand, to specialize in port engineeringin Trieste.

The early twentieth century saw him a successful businessman, happily married to the Italian Petronilla Veneziani, and Honorary Consul of Bulgaria in Italy. A brother-in-law of Italo Svevo, he was part of the cosmopolitan Trieste of the early part of the century; among his closest friends was the writer James Joyce, to whom he entrusted the task of teaching English to his beloved daughters.

Marko Bliznakov hired a number of photographers to capture moments of everyday Bulgarian life and fragments of the beauty of his beloved country.

At that time, glass plates were still the main photographic medium, usually negative, to which a photosensitive emulsion of silver salts was applied. The documentary A Treasure in the Heart, is an integral part of the exhibition Bulgaria Through the Looking Glass of Time, dedicated precisely to the figure of Nadezhda Bliznakov. Produced by MKPRoduction, directed by Milena Kaneva with the collaboration of Irina Dilkova.

Original music by Nikolai Ivanov and Petar Janev.

For all information you can visit the museum’s official website.

Source: release

In Rome, a photo exhibition portraying Bulgaria in the early 20th century

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.