2023- 2024
The exposition now in place at the History Museum in Dimitrovgrad was last changed in the early 1980s and bears all ideological, aesthetic and technological marks of past time. From today’s perspective, it could hardly meet even the most modest requirements of Bulgarian or foreign visitors.
The renovation of this site of memory is necessary to establish the image of Dimitrovgrad as a modern community and tourist product. The redevelopment of the institution implies the enrichment and “retelling” of Dimitrovgrad’s history, the renovation of its infrastructure and its media potential for the socialization of a heterogeneous audience: from older and “remembering” locals, to foreign and “unfamiliar” visitors, to very young children through the integration of a Youth Centre in the museum space.
The aim of the project is to renew the exhibition of the Dimitrovgrad History Museum, to improve its visibility and to increase its impact on the local community and visiting tourists.
The project is implemented on the initiative and in partnership with the municipality of Dimitrovgrad, the colleagues from the Museum and the local civil society. Renovated exposition will offer an adequate understanding of the processes and phenomena of the recent past and their relationship with today. It will allow transforming the Museum into one of the centers of community life.
The duration of the research part of the project is 18 months.
Support for the project of the Institute for Studies of the Recent Past and the Dimitrovgrad History Museum is provided by the America for Bulgaria Foundation. The statements and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the ISRP and do not necessarily reflect the views of the America for Bulgaria Foundation or its affiliates.
* For header of this presentation is used a painting by Stefan Gatsev, “Concrete”, 1970 from the collection of the City Art Gallery “Petko Churchuliyev”.
The America for Bulgaria Foundation (ABF) is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonpolitical American grant-making foundation working in partnership with Bulgarians to strengthen the country’s private sector and related democratic institutions.
ABF builds on the success of the Bulgarian-American Enterprise Fund, an investment fund created in 1991 by the U.S. Congress with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development. For more information, please visit www.us4bg.org.