Оръжието на революционерите в българските музеи като наследство
Revolutionaries’ Weapons in Bulgarian Museums as Heritage

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses the weapons that are preserved until today in Bulgarian museums of the revolutionaries who participated in the struggles for political independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1867–1878. On the basis of observations made within the project “Traces of the Heroic Time,“ as well as of the experience with exhibitions dedicated to this topic, the article makes an overview of the weapons in Bulgarian museums that had belonged to participants in the national liberation struggles – of Georgi Rakovski, Vassil Levski, of the voevods Hadzhi Dimitar Assenov and Stefan Karadza, of Panayot Volov, of Petrana Obretenova, Rayna Popgeorguieva, etc.Raising the issues about the identification of the revolutionaries’ weapons and the interpretation of the facts around them, the author points out that these important artifacts for the construction of historical memory are insufficiently studied in Bulgaria. The article argues that – as materialized history, these weapons facilitate the heroization of the nationally important personalities. Regardless if being truly authentic or not, weapons – similarly to myths, are an important resource for construing the heroism of the national consolidation processes and for the creation and maintenance of the “big historical narratives.“

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