The town of Kazanluk in Central Bulgaria celebrates the 145th birth anniversary of the founder of its local museum. Petar Topuzov is one of the followers of the ideals of the Bulgarian National Revival Period (18th-19th century), who was a militant for the development of culture and the prosperity of his hometown. It is hard to believe nowadays how he managed to do so much for his fellow townsmen in a single life. But he possessed limitless energy and the rare gift to bring all of his ideas to a happy outcome. He launched the idea of setting up an evening school for apprentices, and also used donation from the wealthy townsman Ivan Hadzhienov to establish the Vocational School for Mechanics. As deputy mayor in 1902 he dedicated himself to the electrification and planting of trees in his town. He published also the local paper, “Kazanlushka iskra”. In 1923 on the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Iskra community culture club he had the idea to organize an agricultural expo. But his greatest achievement was the founding of the local museum in 1901.
While he was a high school student in Plovdiv in the 1880s he was a regular visitor to the District Library and was familiar with its museum. So he decided to set up a museum in his hometown. After 10 years of pleading to the municipality administration to open the museum with the community culture club, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He arranged items in a small collection in a cabinet in a small room that housed the kitchen of the theatre buffet. The collection included a medieval arrow, a silver coin from the time of Tsar Svetoslav Terter (1300-1322), a dagger from the theatrical props, the black banner used for the inaugural celebration of the heroic battle of the detachment led by chieftain Hadzhi Dimitar against the Turks, and a fragment of an old marble fountain. And the highlight of the exhibition was a 28-kg pumpkin. He proudly termed his collection “Museum for antiquities and arts” and placed the inscription made by artist Ivan Enchev aka Vidyu above the door. The museum welcomed its first visitors on June 29, 1901. He used the pumpkin to attract the village people who came to the town market every Tuesday. And although visitors left with a smirk by the end of the year some 804 artifacts were collected and the sum of 25 502 BGN.
Was it because of his thoughtfulness or because of his strong will power to pursue his idea, but thanks to the newly established cultural institute Petar Topuzov managed to salvage the local community culture club from the financial crisis they had fallen into. And yet he chose the most unlikely moment to create the museum. The municipality was about to lose the plot on which the new building of the community culture club was being erected for failure to pay mortgages. It was a time of general despondency, and Petar Topuzov wrote in his memoirs with anguish in his heart, “Еverything was abandoned like cattle without a herd. The community culture club received no guests, no one was there to welcome them, anyway…” However, the museum managed to unite the township. And with donations from their fellow townspeople who then lived in Sofia and with their own means they managed to pay the mortgage and save the property.
Under his uncorrupt management the museum quickly developed. Petar Topuzov’s chief merit was that he promoted the idea of safeguarding historical values as the patriotic duty of his townsfolk. He distributed leaflets with guidelines for collecting old artifacts, which he signed “The Keeper of the Old Artifacts in the region of Kazanluk”. In three years’ time the museum occupied already the top floor of the community culture club, and ever since it was founded it had four main divisions: archeological, historical, numismatic and artistic.
To assist in the collecting of artifacts artist Ivan Enchev proposed to set up a tourist society. Thanks to the network of collaborators most of the museum exhibits were donated. Every single donation was carefully registered with the note ‘that it would remain forever’. On the occasion of the museum’s fifth anniversary the municipal paper carried a detailed report which revealed that some 6 544 items had been collected, the money fund amounted to 3 479 BGN, and the number of visitors to 5 231. The museum intended also to publish a catalogue of the collection with colour illustrations, and a special attraction – distilling of rose petals – was devised for the foreign visitors.
Petar Topuzov even mapped out a fantastic scheme to raise money for the maintenance of the museum by digging for ores, signing various concessions. He dug for ores in the Balkan Range, Sredna gora mountain and the Rhodopes. He spent his own savings to the last penny, some 2 000 BGN, but nevertheless he failed to realize his plan.
The hardest times came after World War I, when as he wrote in a letter to the president of the community culture club, he had ‘either to be a monk, or a millionaire. It takes time and money, and it takes a massive stone building with walnut cabinets and glass windows, and poetic inspiration, but in 1918/19 I was living through sheer prose, struggling for a living, considering the overall high cost of living…”
Perhaps it was the ‘poetic inspiration’ that was the key to the successful entrepreneurship of the tireless, vigilant and dedicated museum director. Although he had received no special education and preparation, he created one of the best-kept museums in Bulgaria at the time, and deserved the recognition of the professional museum workers. By the end of 1909 he was already a member of the Bulgarian Archeological Society. On the occasion of the museum’s 20th anniversary Petar Topuzov was awarded the St. Alexander order, 4th degree.
English: Radostin Zhelev
