The Bulgarian News Agency’s (BTA) news reports offer a glimpse into the ambition, dedication and sense of mission with which the country’s first journalists, publishers and printers embarked on their work, Yanitsa Hristova, managing editor of BTA’s LIK magazine, said her on Monday. She spoke at a presentation of LIK’s November issue, dedicated to the 180th anniversary of the publication of the first Bulgarian newspaper, Bulgarski Orel (Bulgarian Eagle), and the development of the press in Bulgaria. “The conditions under which the Bulgarian press emerged were difficult: Bulgaria was not a free country, while newspaper publishing and printing had already made significant advances and gained followers elsewhere in the world,” she added.
“The November issue of LIK magazine draws on the BTA archive to present interesting facts about the development of journalism, the press and publishing in Bulgaria. Its timeline features the views of Prof. Ivan Marazov, who said in 2014 that Bulgarian journalism is older than Bulgarian politics. Ten years earlier, Lyubomir Peevski had observed that in 160 years, Bulgarian journalism had managed to experience what journalism in other civilizations had taken more than 2,000 years to go through. He also noted that in the past, every Bulgarian newspaper was like a small university,” Hristova said.
According to her, the role of the press in Bulgaria quickly became established in “shaping” citizens – not only their everyday lives but also their thinking.
“For decades, books and the press were held in high regard. Almost every household subscribed to a newspaper or magazine and maintained its own library. This makes reports about ‘book prisons’, where books deemed incompatible with the prevailing ideology are destroyed to prevent them from reaching readers, particularly troubling,” Hristova said. She added that BTA’s news archive also documents the emergence of humorous publications in Bulgaria, as well as curious phenomena such as talking newspapers.
“Reports from the 1980s show that journalists had by then assumed a new role as ‘active agents of social transformation’. Towards the end of the decade, the long-awaited change came, and journalists were among those taking to the streets to protest and demand democracy. It was also during this period that the first computers began to be introduced into book production. By the beginning of the new millennium, attention was already turning to the new challenges facing the press as a result of technological advances and the new social order,” Hristova said.
“Truth can be the most powerful weapon, but above all, it must be a journalist’s greatest value,” Hristova concluded.
LIK has been freely accessible since January 2024. All issues published since the magazine’s relaunch in 2022 are available for download in electronic format from BTA’s website.

BTA’s News Reports Reveal Dedication, Sense of Mission of Bulgaria’s First Journalists, Publishers, Printers – LIK Managing Editor THE NEWS FROM BULGARIA – NEWS AGENCY 2009-2025 2026-11-09 06:53:34

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