“Happy Holiday of Word, Letters and Creativity!

27 years before the Liberation of Bulgaria, our people of the Revival began to celebrate the great work of the Holy Brothers Cyril and Methodius.

Moreover, as the Bulgarian teacher, Yoakim Gruev wrote in his memoirs, "year after year, the solemn celebration expanded all over Bulgaria, and from a school holiday as it was at the beginning, became a universal, national Easter".

This "Easter solemnity" of the day, as Ivan Vazov will call it later, is still felt today.

May 24 is our Easter of enlightenment. Celebration of knowledge as power and spiritual unity, as a common verbal nebula, which makes us a nation with a future.

The big goal behind all the additional funding for wages, training courses, modern classrooms and equipment, behind all new curricula - is to revive the teaching profession as a mission.

Let us bring back return that spark that Bulgarian teachers have always had – of leaders, who show directions that open horizons both to our children and to us as a nation.

I sincerely believe that education is the true cause, which can concentrate our energy and our aspirations. Strangely enough, even the harsh disputes about which writers should be in the textbooks is a proof. 

The big change begins when the door of the classroom closes and the teacher stands against those 30 searching, curious or distracted children's eyes. Together they become one class, one community.

And you, dear students and children, take part in this exploration, where you will learn the most important - what do you want to be. Knowing, implacable, but good people, brave and keeping their word, inventors who build their dreams.

Remember that smartphones are not smarter than you are! Nor they can do more than you can! Do not let them rule your life!

The modern virtual hate does not make us either knowledgeable or truly critical. The words that have the power to change are in communication, which builds a community of creation, sharing and constructivism.

Happy Holiday! “

Opening speech of the Mayor of Sofia, Yordanka Fandakova at the monument of the Holy Brothers Cyril and Methodius in Sofia

Photographer: Geo Kalev