On the eve of the Day of the Bulgarian National Enlighteners, representatives of the Bulgarian National Community in Croatia, headed by their President Rashko Ivanov, Bulgarian Ambassador in Croatia Iva Kruleva, representative of the Bulgarian minority in the Municipal Council of Zagreb Pero Diankov and Bulgarians living in Croatia visited the town of Dakovo in the Croatian province of Slavonia.
Every year at the end of October, the Bulgarian community in the Republic of Croatia visits the grave of Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer to express their gratitude and respect for his contribution to the revival of the Bulgarian nation. His merits, both for the education of Bulgarian high school and university students in Croatia in the second half of the 19th century and for the publication of the collection Bulgarian Folk Songs by Bulgarian revivalist brothers Dimitar and Konstantin Miladinovi (natives of Struga, present-day North Macedonia) in 1861, inscribe his name in the history of the Bulgarian revival.
After the wreath-laying ceremony at the grave of Bishop Strossmeyer, in which the Evmolpeya Young Girls’ Choir also participated, the Bulgarian representatives were received by the Archbishop of Dakovac-Osjelica and Metropolitan Djuro Hranic. He expressed his happiness and satisfaction at another meeting with the Bulgarian representatives, which is a confirmation of the friendship of the Bulgarian and Croatian people and of the good relations between the cultural and scientific institutions of the two countries. Ambassador Iva Kruleva and the President of the National Community of Bulgarians in Croatia Rashko Ivanov, expressed their gratitude for the warm welcome and stressed that the great services of Bishop Josip Strossmayer are remembered in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian guests presented Archbishop Hranic with a booklet about the noble Pejacevic family, which is about their life before they left Bulgaria after the suppression of the Chiprovo uprising in October 1688.
The reception at the Archbishop and Metropolitan Djuro Hranic of Dakovo was also attended by Prelate Master Dario Herga, Chancellor of the Archbishop’s Ordinariate in Dakovo, Pero Diankov, representative of the Bulgarian minority in the Municipal Council of Zagreb, Prof. Mira Markova, Dean of the History Faculty of Sofia University, and representatives of the Bulgarian community in Croatia.
