A Documentary Phototype Exhibition About The Writer From Bosnia And Herzegovina Isak Samokovlia Opened At The History Museum In Samokov
On the occasion of the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews, a phototype exhibition about Isak Samokovlia - one of the most famous Bosnian writers - was arranged in the Historical Museum - town of Samokov.
The exhibition is presented for the first time in Bulgaria and illustrates the curious life path of this great writer, creating a cultural bridge between the two countries. It is the work of the Museum of Literature and Performing Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina and is carried out with the active support of the State Institute for Culture under the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Embassy of the Republic of Bulgaria in Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the invitation of the Municipality of Samokov and the Historical Museum in the city.
The Director of the State Institute for Culture Snezhana Joveva - Dimitrova in her welcome emphasized that the idea for the exhibition was born last year when the representative exhibition from the art fund of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs "Diplomacy and Art" visited Sarajevo, after months of preparation, the exhibition is a fact of the right place, in the city of Samokov, from where the author's story started. "This is precisely the task and role of the institute - to create an opportunity for communication and to be a real tool for cultural diplomacy, together with the embassy team and other partners. We managed to organize the exhibition together and to meet the active interaction of the Municipality of Samokov and the History Museum in the city", she added.
"Eighty years ago, our ancestors showed valor and courage, saving the lives of 50,000 Bulgarian citizens of Jewish origin. All these known and unknown worthy Bulgarians will remain a symbol of basic moral principles such as humanity and tolerance," said the representative of the Bulgarian embassy in Sarajevo, Nikola Nikolov. He added that all these Bulgarians believed in strength and goodness. Nikolov thanked the organizers for the exhibition, as well as Zhela Georgieva, who is the translator of the only book in our country, "Samuel the Porter" - a collection of stories by the Bosnian writer Isak Samokovlia.
Zhela Georgieva said that whenever she comes to Samokov, she thinks of Sarajevo. "Somehow I associate Samokov as a small part of Sarajevo, because the city was also multi-ethnic". She added that Jewish culture in Sarajevo is alive because Jews have contributed to the cultural richness that Bosnia and Herzegovina has.
Isak Samokovlia was born on September 3, 1889 in the town of Gorazde, about 70 kilometers east of Sarajevo, into a merchant family of Sephardic Jews. His name, which arouses curiosity, comes from the origin of his ancestors - the Baruch brothers, small merchants who left Samokov in 1860 and settled in Travnik. There, the Baruch brothers constantly talk about their homeland with nostalgia and love, and that's why the local people start calling them the Samokovlia.
"Isaak Samokovlia is a doctor by profession and a writer by vocation. He is becoming a national writer for Bosnia and Herzegovina, from the rank of our authors Ivan Vazov, Yordan Jovkov and other artists," the director of the museum in Samokov Dr. Veselin Hadjiangelov told BTA. He pointed out that the writer's parents emigrated from Samokov at the end of the nineteenth century and went to live in Sarajevo, where there was a large Jewish community.
His path in literature began late. It is written in Serbian. His first book of short stories "From Spring to Spring" was published in 1929, in which he described the life of poor Sarajevo Jews - artisans, ordinary workers. He was then forty years old. Along with his work as a doctor, Isak Samokovlia began to publish his stories, often depicting the daily life of the Jewish community in Sarajevo. He himself says: "I wrote mostly at night. When I finished medical work, I threw myself into literature. And that was the greatest pleasure for me."
Isaac Samokovlia translates works of Jewish authors and writes articles for the magazine "Jewish Life". His short story collections "Samuel the Hamlin" (1946), "On the Track of Life" (1948), "A Tale of Joys" (1953) were published later. In most of them, he describes various human fates that he encountered in his work as a doctor. His daughter Mirjana tells about his way of writing: "He wrote slowly and patiently. He deleted and added sentences, very persistently, until finally he was satisfied with what he had written." Critics define him as a master in the construction of images, of dialogue with a fine sense of detail. The writer Ivo Andrić says of him that he is a remarkable writer of the Sephardic community of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Among those present at the event in Samokov were the ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Bulgaria Zdravko Begović, the representative of the Bulgarian embassy in Sarajevo Nikola Nikolov, guests - a delegation from the Museum of Theater Art and Literature in Sarajevo - authors of the exhibition, the director of the State Institute for Culture under the Minister of Foreign Affairs Snezhana Joveva - Dimitrova, the mayor of Samokov Municipality Vladimir Georgiev, deputy mayors of the Municipality, cultural figures and guests of the city.
The exhibition can be viewed at the History Museum - Samokov until May 20.