The history of Elena (bulgarian version)

For the foreigners, Elena is a Balkan town with ancient churches, a clock tower, wooden houses and cobbled streets. For us, its citizens, Elena is a holy place of the high Bulgarian national revival spirit, a source of patriotism and charm.

There are only two names of Elena`s citizens recorded in the Bulgarian national history: Jossif Bradati, the predecessor of Paisiy Hilendarski and Ilarion Makariopolski- the founder of the „Bulgarian Eastern”. He was the person who has proclaimed the irrefutable truth that ”Only the population is always right”.

In the fall of 1843 Ivan Momchilov and Nikola Mihaylovski laid the foundation of the first Bulgarian school, which was called Daskalolivnitza. Ivan Momchilov made his studies in Philosophy at the Moscow University in the remote 1848. The former pupils of the Daskalolivnitsata- Petko Slaveykov, Dragan Tsankov, Nikola Kozlev, doctor Ivan Kasabov, Stoyan Robovski, Sava Katrafilov had brought the cressets of the education to more than 66 towns and 31 villages in the whole country and out of its borders- from Ploest to Doiran, from Vratza to Bourgas and Tsarigrad.

In this picturesque Balkan town, the past lives along with the present, and the future resist on the rich traditions. In Elena, there are 147 monuments of the cultural heritage. Seven of them with national importance: the Ilarion Makariopolski museum- house, the clock- tower, Daskalolivnitsata, the Assumption and the St.Nikola churches, the five Razsukanov houses and the Popnikolov house. As a part of Elena`s historical heritage, there are 6 000 ethnographic objects declared as cultural monuments, 780 paintings of the revival and contemporary art, as well as many old manuscripts. In the distant epoch of the Bulgarian national revival the strong, hard-working Elena`s people became the creator of its own destiny.

For us, born in this region, Elena will always remain a town of poets: of the past-master of idylls Petko Yurdanov Todorov and the fabulist Stoyan Mihailovski, of the lyricist Ivan Kirilov and the grown up in the Balkan- Emiliyan Stanev.

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