National Library of Bulgaria (NBKM)

• Nazionale

St. Cyril and Methodius National Library of Bulgaria (Natsionalna Biblioteka Sv Sv Kiril i Metodiy, hereafter, NBKM), located in Sofia, has one of the richest Ottoman archives with respect to the quantity and variety of materials. Founded in 1878, the NBKM’s holdings were significantly expanded in 1931 with the acquisition of millions of Ottoman documents from Turkey. Today, the NBKM’s Oriental Department Collection (Kolektsiya na Orientalski Otdel) contains more than 160 sijills, 1000 defters and registers, 1,000,000 individual documents, and countless registers of religious endowments (waqf/awqāf) from all provinces of the Ottoman Empire between the fifteenth and the twentieth centuries. In addition, it has a valuable Persian, Arabic, and Turkish manuscript collection. Apart from its Oriental Department, the Bulgarian Historical Archive (Bŭlgarski istoricheski arkhiv) houses materials dating mostly from the nineteenth century and written in both Ottoman Turkish and Bulgarian. In this sense, NBKM is a hidden gem for scholars of the Middle East and the Balkans.

The NBKM was first established in 1878 as the Sofia Public Library but quickly became the National Library in 1879. During 1870s and 1880s, NBKM officials collected various Ottoman materials from local waqfs and libraries throughout Bulgaria, and brought them to the Oriental Department of the NBKM. In 1944, the entire building was destroyed in the course of the war. While some materials were irreparably damaged during the attacks, much was saved. These surviving materials were transferred to local libraries in order to be protected from further destruction. All the transferred materials were eventually brought back to the NBKM’s main building in late 1940s. The NBKM’s current building was officially opened in 1953. The NBKM gets its name from St. Cyril and St. Methodius, the eponymous brothers who invented the Cyrillic alphabet in late ninth century. A monument of the two brothers holding the Cyrillic alphabet in their hands stands tall in front of the NBKM, and it is also one of the landmarks of the city.

Entry prepared on January 2017.

Seçil Uluışık, “National Library of Bulgaria,” HAZINE, 9 May 2015, http://hazine.info/national-library-bulgaria/

Author : Open Jerusalem http://www.openjerusalem.org/