70 Years Professional Archival Education and 20 Years Archival and Documental Studies Specialty in the University of Sofia St. Кliment Ohridski

Conclusions with Thoughts about the Future

Abstract

The presented report charts the creation of Archival and Documental Studies specialty during 2002/2003 academic year in the Faculty of History of Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski with regard to the 70-year-old history and development of the Bulgarian University Archival Studies as contemporary national educational model. The objective is to outline the different stages with their specific features and achievements as result of the efforts of the management and the academic community in Sofia University as of 1952 until the present, in order to provide professional training in the field of archival studies with regard to the formation, preservation and organization of the use of our national public documental and archival resources.

This approach allows also to remind the names of the university professors in the correspondent profiled disciplines and as participants in the academic structures, who during their times have contributed for the organization of the professional archival education in the University of Sofia as well as for the establishment of the Bulgarian archival academic school. Some of its most renowned representatives are Academician Ivan Simeonov Duychev, who is the first graduated archivist-paleographer, alumnus of Vatican School of Archives and Paleography (1933 – 1936), and Associate Professor Mariya Pavlova Mateeva, long-term professor in archival studies (1958 – 1983) and Head of Archival Studies and Auxiliary Historic Disciplines Department in the Faculty of History, University of Sofia.

They are also authors of fundamental developments with intransitive importance in this specific area of knowledge and practice.

The anniversary celebrations in the Faculty of History, University of Sofia, including the 20th Anniversary of Archival and Documental Studies specialty, present an opportunity to pay attention on some of the unresolved problems resulting from the welded position the professional title archivist not to be regulated by the National Archival Funds Act (NAFA, 2007) in accordance with the List of the regulated professions in the Republic of Bulgaria where the profession archivist has been included since 2009. It is noted that since our state bureaucracy has neglected for years its obligation to legally regulate the professional title archivist in compliance with the statute of the regulated profession archivist, the graduated Bulgarian archivists normally have the right to initiate procedures for their professional protection before the International Council on Archives – (ICA), in which our country was admitted as a member in 1959.

Despite the problems of the Bulgarian professional university education that have been mentioned, the Archival and Documental Studies specialty in the Faculty of History, University of Sofia is undoubtedly one successful project with traditions, achievements and potential for development!