On May 19, 2023, in the Ivan Evstr. Geshov Hall in the central building of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, as well as online, the international conference "Historical Bulgarian Studies outside Bulgaria: State-of-the-art and Perspectives" was held. The conference is organized by the Council for Foreign Bulgarian Studies, the Institute for Balkan Studies and Centre of Tracology and the Institute for Historical Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in implementation of the National Scientific Program "Development and Promotion of Bulgarian Studies Abroad". The conference was opened by Prof. Alexandre Kostov, Dr. habil., Corresponding Member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences – Chairman of the Council for Foreign Bulgarian Studies. Assoc. Prof. Elka Traikova, PhD - scientific secretary of the BAS gave a welcome speech.
The conference was held in a hybrid format. Bulgarian and foreign scholars from sixteen countries participated with reports.
The first session, chaired by Prof. Roumiana Preshlenova, PhD (Institute of Balkan Studies and Centre of Tracologyat the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), was dedicated to the development of Bulgarian studies in Poland, Hungary and Greece. Bulgarian studies in India, Ukraine, China and Japan were presented in the second session of the conference, chaired by Prof. Alexandre Kostov, Dr. habil., Corresponding Member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The third session of the conference, moderated by Prof. Penka Peykovska (Institute for Historical Studies - BAS), was dedicated to the state of Bulgarian studies in Germany, Spain, Belgium and Italy. The last session of the conference, cahired by Prof. Lyubka Lipcheva-Prandzheva (Plovdiv University "Paisiy Hilendarski"), was dedicated to Bulgarian studies in the Russian Federation and Moldova.
The intensive work of the conference was followed by a fruitful discussion in which the participants united around the idea of the importance of scholarly dialogue and sharing different points of view. The main goal of the initiative is to create a network of Bulgarians all over the world and to gather ideas for a common strategy to engage the institutions at national level. It is extremely important to create conditions for the entire development of a new generation of Bulgarians.The conference was closed by Prof. Alexandre Kostov, Dr. habil., Corresponding Member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, who expressed gratitude to all participants. He concluded that the National program for the development of Bulgarian studies as a modern scholarly discipline is a necessary step in the right direction.
