Podcast in English
Text size
Bulgarian National Radio © 2024 All Rights Reserved

National Polytechnic Museum Sofia host exhibition featuring postcards from the 20th century

Photo: National Polytechnic Museum Sofia

A Christmas greeting, a marriage proposal or news about the end of the war. All of this was written on a postcard without an envelope and a stamp and was delivered to an address. The past does not seem to be as far away as we think, reminds the exhibition "Vernissage of Vanity" of the Kardzhali Regional History Museum. The National Polytechnic Museum Sofia plays host to the exhibition.

The exhibition presents Katisha Ilieva's family collection of 137 black-and-white and coloured postcards covering the period 1913-1931. Most of them are from the period of the First World War (1914-1918) and were sent from the battle front - the so-called soldiers postcards. Others are Christmas, New Year and Easter postcards, name day greeting cards and postcards celebrating the the end of the war, the coronation of King Boris III, etc.

The postcards themselves are small works of art and the exhibition is the first initiative to show them in this light. They are an authentic reflection of historical reality, people‘s daily lives, taste and vanity in miniature, said the curators of the exhibition. Most exhibits are made by European printing houses, including printing houses from Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, German, France and Bulgaria. The messages written on the back of each beautiful postcard reflect the wide variety of human emotions.

The exhibition “Vernissage of Vanity” visits Sofia on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the National Polytechnic Museum and will continue until March 2023.

You can find more interesting facts related to the popular Christmas tradition of sending greeting cards in Radio Bulgaria’s article named "When did the first Christmas tree appear in Bulgaria?".




Последвайте ни и в Google News Showcase, за да научите най-важното от деня!
Listen to the daily news from Bulgaria presented in "Bulgaria Today" podcast, available in Spotify.

More from category

Tsar Boris III

Exhibition in Sofia on the occasion of the 130th anniversary of the birth of Tsar Boris III

The National History Museum celebrates the 130th anniversary of the birth of Tsar Boris III with the exhibition "Tsar Boris III. Personality and Statesman" . It will be opened today in the central lobby of the museum. The exhibition will present, in..

published on 10/3/24 6:05 AM

Why a new Pan-Orthodox Council must be convened in Sofia

26 years ago, on 30 September, at the initiative of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (BOC), a Pan-Orthodox Council was convened in Sofia to resolve the schism within the Bulgarian clergy . Then, despite the efforts of Patriarch Bartholomew of Istanbul to..

published on 9/30/24 7:05 AM
On September 20, Prof. Ludmil Vagalinski's team discovered a statue in Heraclea Sintica, three days later they also discovered the head of the sculpture.

Floor mosaic and the head of a Roman statue discovered at Heraclea Sintica

The head of a statue has been unearthed during excavations in the great canal of the ancient city of Heraclea Sintica located in Southwestern Bulgaria, close to the town of Petrich. The head longs to the statue that was discovered a few days ago..

published on 9/23/24 4:48 PM