2024-07-03 18:32:41
The Mayor of Sofia, Vasil Terziev, has terminated the competition for the restoration of the Memorial to the fallen soldiers of the First Sofia Infantry Regiment and the Sixth Turnov Infantry Regiment next to the National Palace of Culture. “We will hold a new competition and in it we will include respected urban planners, architects, artists, sculptors, historians, sociologists, professional organizations, citizens’ associations,” Terziev wrote on Facebook.
This gave GERB-SDS a reason to demand his resignation.
“The environment in which we live proves more and more clearly that the only way to build a responsible vision for the future is by having a frank conversation about our past. Before the local elections, the fourth consecutive competition for the restoration of the Soldier’s Monument in the space in front of the National Palace of Culture began. This monument is the subject of much controversy and is an example of the need to have an informed discussion about our history as a society,” he also wrote.
The theme of this monument had a special and personal meaning for him. His great-grandfather – Iliya Ivanov was a participant in all three wars – the Balkan War, the Inter-Allied War and the First World War. He was captured and as a prisoner of war worked for two years on the construction of the road between Drama and Kavala. He was wounded in the thigh and the bullet was not removed, but came out on its own when my great grandfather was over 70 years old. During these two years, while he was a prisoner of war, his wife and child also died. “Such stories have thousands of other Bulgarian families. And they should not leave a drop of doubt in anyone’s mind – the memory of the soldiers who died in the Balkan War, the Inter-Allied War and the First World War must and will be honored. I believe that we can do this in agreement. Without doubts about the legitimacy of the contest, without tensions between communities. By uniting in honoring the memory of all the sacrifices we have made as a nation,” he wrote. This was the reason for the termination of the current procedure for conducting the competition.
“We will hold a new competition and in it we will include respected urban planners, architects, artists, sculptors, historians, sociologists, professional organizations, citizens’ associations. We are starting work with the professional organizations and will start this month with a meeting for public discussion of the competitions held over the years and the weaknesses and mistakes that we must correct. Thank you for the initiative for such a meeting of the Union of Architects in Bulgaria,” he also wrote.
And he promises that efforts will be made to get as many creatives as possible to enter projects in the next competition. “We will seek the different points of view and we will step on data and analysis of public opinion. We will do everything necessary to make the whole process open and public, because we will talk about history and heritage, about art and diversity, about where we come from and where we want to go let’s get there as a society. And above all, we will have an honest, apolitical conversation – because both the past and the future demand it,” wrote the mayor of Sofia.
In May of this year, the winner of the competition was announced: studio “GEBUPLAN” EOOD” headed by arch. Filipa Guguchkova, reported from the “Architecture and Town Planning” Department.
The project envisaged that the memorial walls, strictly restored according to the original drawings, would be arranged in a U-shape and smoothly transition to a park environment.
In addition, the creation of water ponds was planned, which will be adapted to the architecture of the current fountains.
On the back of the memorial walls, there should have been “green stripes” that would be a visual continuation of the park environment.
The memorial was erected in 1934. It had three imposing walls arranged in the shape of the letter P. Each was 21 m wide and 11 m high. On the central one was the inscription “They died heroically for the freedom and unification of the Bulgarian people”.
The walls were part of a barracks complex that occupied the place between today’s “Vitosha”, “Skobelev”, “Fr. Nansen” and “Patriarch Euthymius” boulevards. The buildings of the two regiments were separated by an alley, at the end of which was the square with the memorial walls. In front of the middle wall stood the figure of a lion.
In the 1944 World War II bombing, the right wall was destroyed.
Later – in 1980, during the construction of the NDK, the other two walls were also removed. The monument “1300 Bulgaria” was installed in their place, which was dismantled years ago and the figure of the lion returned there.