Podcast in English
Text size
Bulgarian National Radio © 2024 All Rights Reserved

“With Manol Mihailov’s songs” folklore competition – the new addition to the Petrova Niva festival

СнимкаFor the people of Strandzha the locality called Petrova Niva holds special significance. It was here that, in 1903, a congress was held that made the decision to call an uprising – the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie uprising – which was brutally suppressed.

To this day people in these parts mark the event with an annual festival in August, held in the meadows of Petrova Niva in Mount Strandzha where a monument was raised to the people who laid down their lives in the national-liberation struggles, a church was built – St. Petka – and a museum collection put together to display exhibits from the liberation struggles of Bulgarians in Thrace and Macedonia.

The 114th anniversary of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie uprising was marked on the 19th of August in Petrova Niva. The ceremony was attended by over 10,000, among them President Rumen Radev, patron of the celebrations. A folklore competition was held to mark the memorable date – “With Manol Mihailov’s songs”.

The acclaimed singer of folklore from the Thracian region grew up with the songs of the village where he was born – Gramatikovo. His love of Strandzha folklore was his constant companion and he turned his efforts to studying local rituals, traditions and style. These studies resulted in a book entitled “Strandzha folk songs”.




Manol Mihailov has recorded more than 550 songs at the Bulgarian National Radio. He himself admits: “I am a radio singer. I owe my popularity to my repertoire songs, aired on radio. And a great many of them are dedicated to the people who organized the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie uprising.”




That was how the idea came into being to include a competition - “With Manol Mihailov’s songs” – in the Petrova Niva festival programme. The competition was organized by Kostadin Mihailov. Here is what he said about its very first edition:

“I am so pleased that we were able to organize it and make our dream come true. The youngest participant was Maria Panayotova, from Bourgas, she is 6, the oldest is 78. I have always imagined Manol Mihailov at Petrova Niva, singing for all the men who took part in the uprising – he has sung so many rebel songs that he well deserves such a competition. I wish him much health and energy, so that we can hold this competition for many years to come.”






 English version: Milena Daynova

Photos: BTA and archive

Gallery

More from category

A fully preserved statue from the 2nd-3rd century was discovered in Odessos

A unique statue from the Roman period of Odessos, preliminarily dated to the late 2nd to the first half of the 3rd century, has been discovered during excavation works near the train station in Varna, said archaeologists from the Varna Regional..

published on 10/15/24 6:10 PM
Engineer Katya Stoyanova, head of the

The municipality of Petrich awarded for the promotion of Heraclea Sintica

Petrich municipality has received an award for original promotion of the tourist destination Heraclea Sintica , Katya Stoyanova, head of the "Restoration, conservation and socialization of Heraclea Sintica" project, said this for BTA.  The award..

published on 10/15/24 2:23 PM
Photo: National Museum of Natural History of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Paleontologists find more than 30 animal fossils from the time of the dinosaurs near Trun

What was the animal world like in the region of what is today the town of Trun more than 80 million years ago – that is the question paleontologists from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences’ National Museum of Natural History have been trying to answer...

published on 10/6/24 6:35 AM