The Bulgarian National Radio is now a partner of Bulgaria’s State Cultural Institute (SCI) with the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the promotion of Bulgarian culture around the world. This became possible through the signing of a strategic agreement with the Institute, which, since 2005, has been implementing important international and national projects in the field of cultural diplomacy and the popularization of Bulgaria’s cultural and historical heritage and contemporary Bulgarian art around the world.‎

"This partnership with the BNR is strategically important for us. The State Cultural Institute manages a very rich art fund, as one of our goals is to promote this cultural heritage, and through public radio channels, such information would reach the real users of our projects more actively and quickly," Snezhana Yoveva, director of the State Cultural Institute, pointed out.

‎"For one year, our institute has been implementing an important project financed by the Norwegian Fund entitled "Strategic cooperation between Bulgaria and Norway in support of Bulgaria's international commitments to combat anti-Semitism and the preservation of Jewish heritage" and together with colleagues from the Diplomatic Institute and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are carrying out a number of studies and public events to show the modern dimensions of the memory of the salvation of the Bulgarian Jews. I believe that through the cooperation with the BNR and the various programs, the results of this project will be more shared and more people will be able to learn about current cultural projects that our team implements.”

As a public-service broadcaster, BNR actively works on its task of supporting Bulgarian culture and art, and on the other hand, it also has a commitment to the Bulgarian diasporas around the world. "I think both things can be accomplished through this partnership with the help of our programmes, websites and new media products that we plan to implement in the near future," said BNR General Director Milen Mitev. According to him, the foreign-language programmes of the BNR, Radio Bulgaria, will be an active participant in the project:

"Radio Bulgaria is a very important resource of the BNR, which seems to have not been used to its full potential in recent years. I am optimistic that in the coming years we will be able to strengthen the influence of Radio Bulgaria, including through such partnerships, because in the situation in which we work with limited financial resources, partnerships with other institutions are increasingly important to us." ‎

• The news from Bulgaria – every day in nine languages from Radio Bulgaria

And as far as the mission of Radio Bulgaria is to present in ten languages ​​all aspects of life in Bulgaria and bring Bulgaria’s cultural and historical heritage to a multilingual audience all over the world, information about the projects of the State Cultural Institute at home and abroad will have an important place on Radio Bulgaria's web pages.

In just a couple of days, an event which will draw attention to the achievements of Bulgarian artists will take place in Sarajevo, where the exhibition "Diplomacy and Art" will be a visiting exhibition to Bosna and Herzegovina’s National Museum of Literature and Arts.‎

"Ambassador Valery Yotov will host this exhibition, there will be a reception on the occasion of the Day of Diplomacy - July 19, and the audience in Sarajevo will be able to get acquainted with masterpieces from our art fund, which cover a long period of the painting tradition here. This includes the participation of works that entered the art fund last year, namely a magnificent donation from the cosmopolitan Bulgarian artist Alzek Misheff, who lives in Milan,” Snezhana Yoveva explained to Radio Bulgaria.

• Alzek Misheff "flew" over the Iron Curtain to win a place among the world avant-garde

Bulgaria’s National Cultural Institute with the Minister of Foreign Affairs is a structure specifically aiming to support the products and projects related to cultural diplomacy and public events of Bulgaria’s diplomatic missions abroad. On the other hand, there is our partnership with quite a few Bulgarian and foreign organizations abroad.

“For example, less than a year ago the institute was accepted into EUNIC (European Union National Institutes for Culture) and thanks to this membership we are able to support our embassies, which are mostly outside the EU, to participate actively in the cluster networks in places and to implement large cultural projects and festivals with the participation of Bulgarian artists”, Snezhana Yoveva adds.

English version: Rositsa Petkova