National Projects

DEBATI.BG

The new media DEBATI.bg was launched on June 7, 2017. The official presentation took place at the Ivan Vazov National Theatre in the presence of intellectuals, journalists, university professors, representatives of business and the non-governmental sector. DEBATI.BG offers consumers an entirely new media concept - for the first time in Bulgaria a newspaper and television are integrated into one. Until now it was the practice to post individual videos on the Internet. However, the DEBATI.BG team has managed to create an organically amalgamated news program. The aim is to inform the user about the most important events of the day in a time span of 12-14 throughout the day, wherever the consumers happen to be.The second part of DEBATI.BG is provisionally called a "newspaper". It offers users breaking news as it develops, with comments, analysis and interviews by the most established and recognizable names in Bulgaria and internationally.DEBATI.BG upholds democratic and pro-European values.

А prize for Pro-Bulgarian policy

DEBATI.bg has chosen to dedicate its first anniversary to an important part of Bulgarian history, which was brought to international attention to the credit of Professor Bar-Zohar - The salvation of Bulgarian Jews during WW2. To mark the occasion DEBATI.BG re-published his book "Salvation".The award for pro-Bulgarian policy was presented to Prof. Michael Bar-Zohar - one of Bulgaria's greatest friends - by DEBATI.BG publisher Mr. Emil Stoyanov and President Rosen Plevneliev. DEBATI.bg is a statuette of the mythical figures Pygmalion and Galatea.

"The Policies of Bulgaria in the Euro-Atlantic Reality"

The conference organized by DEBATI.bg and the Pygmalion Foundation entitled "The Policies of Bulgaria in the Euro-Atlantic Reality" attracted a large audience as it offered the opportunity to participate in a discussion on the achievements and priorities Bulgaria has today. The forum was held at the Representation Office of the European Commission and the European Parliament in Sofia and enjoyed great public and media interest - nearly 100 experts, politicians, public figures, citizens and students and dozens of media representatives attended.The main speakers at the event were former Prime Minister of Belgium and former President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy, US Ambassador to Bulgaria HE Eric Rubin, the President of the Republic of Bulgaria 2012-2017 Rosen Plevneliev, former Prime Minister of Bulgaria (1991-1992) and current Constitutional Judge Philip Dimitrov and economist and founder of the Institute for Market Economy Assoc. Prof. Krassen Stanchev.

Exhibitions

On December 14 2008 the "Pygmalion" Foundation organized a Christmas auction of paintings and sculptures entitled "Plovdiv's artists." Pictures of several generations of artists from Plovdiv were shown - from Zlatyu Boyadzhiev and Tsanko Lavrenov, and Georgi Bozhilov and Encho Pironkov to Atanas Hranov and Valeri Tsenov.

Theater

In 2009, the "Pygmalion" Foundation supported the theater project by Stoyan Alexiev and Konstantin Kazansky "Born in Europe, on our street," played in Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas, Stara Zagora and other cities

Europeana

"Europeana" is a digital library, museum and cultural archive. It is a site that gives access to nearly 15 million digital works - films, photographs, paintings, musical scores, maps, manuscripts, books, periodicals.

The digital content is provided by European museums, libraries, archives and audiovisual collections. Each country decides on its own how to be represented in the European online library. Currently half of the content is from France, where one can see the digitized collections of the Louvre, the first records from the battlefield in France in 1914. Apart from the Louvre also 1,500 institutions more have submitted their content in Europeana, allowing everyone to experience European history and culture from ancient times until today.

During the first conference in 2010

Part of the audience during the second conference

The first international conference "Necessary steps for integration of Bulgaria into the Europeana", organized by Emil Stoyanov, took place in Plovdiv on 23 and 24 April and brought together for the first time in Bulgaria representatives of the European Commission, Foundation Europeana, the Ministry of Culture, the National Assembly and the biggest Bulgarian libraries, the academic and the cultural institutions involved in the project of digitization of the spiritual heritage of Europe.

It was organized by the Member of the European Parliament Emil Stoyanov in Plovdiv on 23 and 24 April and brought together for the first time in Bulgaria representatives of the European Commission, Foundation Europeana, the Ministry of Culture, the National Assembly and the biggest Bulgarian libraries, the academic and the cultural institutions involved in the project of digitization of the spiritual heritage of Europe.

During the second conference entitled "The Bulgarian content in Europeana", which also took place in the Pygmalion House in Plovdiv, the priorities for the Bulgarian content in Europeana were set. To assist this process of digitalization of Bulgarian cultural and historical heritage, the Pygmalion Foundation awarded 10 scholarships for students from Plovdiv University "Paisii Hilendarski", who in the summer of 2011 digitized main cultural and historical sites, through which Plovdiv could be better represented in the project Europeana. They worked in the Special Collections Department of the National Library Ivan Vazov, processing and uploading on electronic media the cultural facts of Plovdiv and the region.

Third Conference on the mega project of the European Union was held in the European Parliament in Brussels. The project Europeana gathered in Brussels, the Bulgarian scientific and political elite with the people from the European institutions, engines of the large-scale project. The conference was initiated by once again by Emil Stoyanov and was aiming to coordinate all Bulgarian efforts to present the Bulgarian cultural and historical heritage in the digital network.

It was attended by leaders of the Committee on Culture from both the European and the Bulgarian Parliament, as well as leading Bulgarian experts from libraries, museums, archives. Special guest was the Bulgarian EU Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva, as well as Jacques de Decker, a member of the Comité des Sages (a high level group for strategic analysis on the digitalization of the European cultural heritage) to the European Commission

In April 2012 in Plovdiv opened the 4th conference devoted on Europeana. The two-day conference attended representatives of libraries, museums, archives and galleries from Bulgaria. Bulgaria has increased more than 9 times its content in the European digital library and has already digitized more than 38,000 titles from Bulgarian literature, music, art, periodicals, announced by Emil Stoyanov. The European Commission has given its recommendations on how to develop Europeana in Bulgaria, said Emil Stoyanov. Henceforth Bulgarians urgently need to create a National Board of digitalization. He will coordinate the work between the different cultural institutions. Minister Tomislav Donchev also expressed his support for this project. Representatives from the Ministry for EU funds read a special letter from the Minister. Emil Stoyanov announced that this year again he will provide 10 scholarships to students from the Plovdiv University, who will continue to work on the digitization of materials and information related to the history of the city and the region.

The participants of the four conferences many times came to the conclusion that Bulgaria still has no national policy and technological infrastructure to allow its merit place in this European venture and therefore urged the authorities to establish a National Council on digitization of cultural and historical heritage, to develop a national strategy for digitization, to build a national register of digital catalogues and to work actively to promote the project. Thus letters to the Minister for Culture and to the Prime Minister have been written; unfortunately an answer is still missing and also any administrative solution of the issue.

Halma

In 2006, the "Pygmalion" Foundation was co-founder of the big European project "Halma". Its participants are 22 literary and cultural institutions from 16 countries. Leading institution is the Literary Colloquium in Berlin and his director Dr. Ulrich Yanetski.

The project starts with the blessing of the German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Upon decision of the members of Halma the session of the Foundation for 2007 took place in Plovdiv, in the newly opened House of the "Pygmalion" Foundation in Ivan Vazov Str., 42.

In 2008 as part of the project Halm the "Pygmalion" Foundation welcomed its first quest - the Swiss writer Urs Fass. For two months he was living in Plovdiv and got acquainted with the city's history, cultural heritage, with the daily life in Plovdiv. On October 16, 2008 the "Pygmalion" Foundation organized a presentation of the writer in literary salon in "Ivan Vazov" Str. Urs Fass read an excerpt from his essay, which h he wrote about Plovdiv, which will be published in German and English.

On May 20, 2008 in the literary salon of the "Pygmalion" Foundation the Austrian writer and publisher Loyze Wieser was presented. "Wieser" Publishing translates and publishes Bulgarian literature - from the classics to contemporary poets and writers.

Balkan alphabets

In 2008, the "Pygmalion" Foundation with the Foundation for Culture "Edenkoben" of Rhineland-Palatinate in the Federal Republic of Germany became a founding member of the literary project with director Ingo Wilhelm called "Balkan alphabets", which is for the publication of bilingual editions of Bulgarian, Romanian and Greek authors.