We celebrate May 24th!

Bulgaria celebrates May 24 - The Day of Bulgarian Education and Culture and the Slavonic Alphabet. On this day we honor the work of the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius - the creators of the Slavonic alphabet.

The brothers Constantine-Cyril and Methodius were born in Thessaloniki in the ninth century. In 855, according to some historians, seven years later, they created the Glagolitic, the Slavonic alphabet, in the Byzantine Polyhron Monastery in the area of Bithynia, Asia Minor, and made translations of a number of sacred books.

Then they began to make Christianity known to Old Slavonic among the Slavonic nations. The Thessalonian brothers also had students who continued their work. Among them are Clement, Naum, Sava, Gorazd, and Angelarius.The brothers Cyril and Methodius were canonized as saints for the translation and popularization of the Bible in the Old Slavic language and the spread of Christianity. In 1980 they were proclaimed by Pope John Paul II as the patrons of Europe.

As a day of education the day was celebrated for the first time in Plovdiv in 1851, when on the initiative of Naiden Gerov were organized a holiday and a procession. For the official holiday of Bulgaria 24 May was announced by a decision of the Parliament on 30 March 1990.

The anthem of the Day of Bulgarian Education and Culture - "Go, revived nation", was written in 1892. Author of the text is Stoyan Mihaylovsky, who published it for the first time in "Thought" magazine, and in 1901 the composer Panayot Pipkov discovered the poem in a textbook and decided to write music on it. The anthem includes 14 pairs. The poem was translated into 21 languages.