Thracia XVІІІ: In memory of Alexander Fol, Колектив, ИБЦТ „Проф. Александър Фол”, 2009

Thracia XVІІІ: In memory of Alexander Fol

Автор: Колектив
Раздел: Балканският полуостров преди Аспарух, Българска история на чужди езици, Археология
Издателство: ИБЦТ „Проф. Александър Фол”
Народност: българска
ISBN: 02049872
първо издание, 2009 год.
меки корици, 602 стр.
Цена: 15,00 лв

On 12 May 1972, the Institute of Thracology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences was created with Ordinance No. 185 of the Council of Ministers of the People`s Republic of Bulgaria. Professor Alexander Fol became its founder and first Director.
During the 35 years of the Institute`s existence under the guidance and auspices of Professor Alexander Fol, the Institute organised and participated in: -10 international congresses of Thracology:
First- 1972 (Sofia, Bulgaria), Second- 1976 (Bucharest, Romania), Third- 1980 (Vienna, Austria), Fourth - 1984 (Rotterdam, The Netherlands), Fifth - 1988 (Moscow, Russia), Sixth - 1992 (Palma de Mallorca, Spain), Seventh - 1996 (Constanta-Mangalia-Tulcea, Romania), Eighth - 2000 (Sofia, Bulgaria), Ninth - 2004 (Chisinau, Moldova), Tenth-2005 (Komotini-Alexandroupolis, Greece). The Eleventh Congress of Thracology is due to take place Istanbul-Edirne, Turkey.
- 8 International Philippopolis Weeks of Thracian History and Culture, with a seat in the city of Plovdiv.
First - 1974, Second - 1976, Third - 1978, Fourth - 1980; Fifth - 1982, Sixth - 1986, Seventh - 1990, Eighth - 1994.
- 8 International Scientific Symposia Thracia Pontica, organised jointly with the National Centre of Underwater Archaeology, with a seat in the town of Sozopol.
First - 1979, Second - 1982, Third - 1985, Fourth - 1988; Fifth - 1991, Sixth -1994, Seventh - 1999, Eighth - 2003.
Since 1988, the International Council of Indo-European and Thracian Studies chose the Institute of Thracology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences as its Secretariat, with Professor Alexander Fol as its Secretary General, and since 1990 it started releasing its annual publication: Orpheus. Journal of Indo-European and Palaeo-Balkan Studies.
Under the competent guidance and editorial work of Professor Alexander Fol, the Institute published: 16 volumes of its principal edition Thracia, 8 volumes of its monographic series Studia Thracica, 1 volumes of Pulpudeva - proceedings of the Philippopolis Weeks of Thracian History and Culture, 16 volumes of the Orpheus Journal, 3 volumes of Thracian Monuments, 2 volumes of Sources on the History of Thrace and the Thracians, and 5 volumes Ancient Sources on the Sources about Thrace and the Thracians.
On 1 March 2006, the founder of the Institute of Thracology and of modern THRACOLOGY Professor Alexander Fol stepped from Linear into Mythological Time.
In the same year 2006, the General Assembly of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences took the worthy decision of naming the Institute of Thracology after Professor Alexander Fol. Since 2007, again with a decision of the General Assembly of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Thracology became Professor Alexander Fol Centre of Thracology. The year 2008 marked the 75th anniversary of the Institute`s founder Professor Alexander Fol (born on 3 July 1933).
In connection with these important dates and the anniversary, the Academic Council of the Professor Alexander Fol Centre of Thracology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences decided the 18th volume of the Centre`s principal publication Thracia to be dedicated to the memory of Professor Alexander Fol.
Scholars from Bulgaria and from the UK, Germany, Greece, Spain, Romania, Russia, Turkey and France responded to the invitation to contribute to the volume. The Editorial Board extends its gratitude to all of them.
Who is Alexander Fol?
Alexander Fol - the Professor, the Scholar, the Teacher, the Director, the Minister and the Statesman - was a Man (all with capital letters!). Owing to his upbringing and education in the family of eminent intellectuals, owing to his degrees in History and Classical Philology from the University of Sofia, and above all to his divine, i.e., moral and creative, talents with which he was generously endowed, he succeeded in gaining a wise insight and in making his time not only HISTORICAL, but also HISTORIC. This will be realised more and more not so much as a chronology of his life, but as an exceptional intellectual cosmic pulsation, in the name of science and of the culture of his exceptionally gifted Bulgarian people, and in the name of European values and of the history of the entire humankind.
Alexander Fol realised that the history and the culture of some of the oldest IndoEuropeans, the Thracians, constitute a Palaeo-Balkan heritage and a contribution to the treasure house of the values of present-day Europe. He formulated the theory that as the history of culture is older than the history of the state, then that heritage can be discovered and is indeed discovered preserved to a different degree in most peoples of Southeastern Europe, in the ancient Thracian space: from the Carpathian Mountains in the north to the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean Sea with the northern islands in the south, from the lands between the Dniester and Dniepr rivers and the Black Sea in the east, to the lands along the Morava and Vardar rivers in the west.
He attached particular importance to the encounter between the two types of ancient behaviour: of the polis type (the behaviour of the ancient Greeks) and of the ethnos type (of the Thracians). In his opinion, that encounter between the literary Greek society (with written culture) and the non-literary Thracian society (with oral culture) was an act of fate, hence it created, through interactions, mutual influences and synthesis, a fruitful contact zone along the sea coasts of Southeastern Europe, which he referred to as Thracia Pontica.
In and through the pulsation in TIME, perceived as a moral and creative MISSION to protect the Good - for promoting the dignity of the Bulgarian nation, of Bulgarian history and culture (at the basis of which are ,”his" and “our" Thracians) - the vital, indefatigable, ironic and self-ironic Alexander Fol, who had gained an insight into his intellectual energy as part of the Cosmos and as cosmic energy, worked successfully to make us, Bulgarians, Europeans in Bulgaria, while at the same time remaining Bulgarians in Europe and in the world with our rich systems of values attained through suffering over the millennia.
In his study Deep Roots, way back in 1966, he wrote: “The ancient component of the Bulgarian nation is yet to attract the efforts of researchers and psychographers, it is yet to take shape as a comprehensive academic domain. And the more time elapses, the higher its value will become - for many reasons, or maybe just for one reason, namely that people need to have travelled to great distances to see clearly where they started from."
We would paraphrase his words as follows: the more time elapses, the greater the value of the modern global academic domain called THRACOLOGY would become, having won deserved recognition not only in Bulgaria, but in Europe and throughout the world.

From the Editorial Board