On Friday, the 4th of October, the cartoon exhibition “Our Common World - Smiling Messages from Bulgaria” was showcased at the National Library of South Africa. The initiative was implemented together with the Gabrovo Museum "House of Humour and Satire” and the National Library of South Africa.

The exhibition was opened by Ambassador Maria Pavlova, who highlighted the special place of the humour and satire in the Bulgarian national psychology, culture and social environment. She accentuated the rich history of the Bulgarian cartoon as a time picture and a mirror image of the various  challenges, faced by the Bulgarians on their life journeys by keeping an optimistic spirit and unfailing sense of humour. She pointed out the important role of the Museum of Humour and Satire in the town of Gabrovo, as the only one of its kind home-museum of the humorous art, with a rich fund, comprising 34560 humorous and satirical works. Ambassador Pavlova stressed the social function of the humour and the satirical art during the socialist period of Bulgaria, as a means of expressing oppositional ideas with metaphorical symbols and Aesopian language.

The exhibited works of art were introduced in detail by the curator of the exhibition Mr Kalin Nikolov – a Bulgarian artist-cartoonist and curator of the National Gallery. The collection had been compiled by art works from the archive of the Gabrovo Home of Humour and Satire, from the Bulgarian National Gallery and with the personal contribution of the artist Anri Koulev. Among the featured artists are Donyo Donev, Tenyu Pindarev, Georgi Chaushov and Boris Dimovski, who have left their names in the golden fund of the Bulgarian fine art. The guests were also entertained by fragments from famous Bulgarian animation films, considered classics of the Bulgarian satirical animation.

The exhibition attracted heightened interest from the South African society, representatives of the government and non-government sectors, artists, actors and journalists, representatives of the Diplomatic Corps and former South African students, who had received their education in Bulgaria. The guests shared positive impressions from the Bulgarian cartoons, moved by the historical and psychological insights and the actuality of the common human topics from the spheres of ecology, family relationships, the human attitude to technology and the lack of humanity in the modern world. The satirical language of the works provoked interesting discussions among the guests, who made pictures and shared the cartoons online.

The Bulgarian cartoon collection could be seen at the National Library of South Africa until the 11th of October 2024.