Sofia University Research Articles

Comparison of n-3 PUFA-Enriched vs. Olive-Oil-Based Lipid Emulsion on Oxidative Stress and Inflammatory Response in Critically Ill Post-Surgery Adults: Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Controlled Trial

Malnutrition in critically ill patients represents a major concern as it can lead to adverse outcomes including increased morbidity and mortality. These patients exhibit an impaired immune response accompanied by increased oxidative stress. Nutritional support, including parenteral nutrition (PN), is critical in these patients. Intravenous lipid emulsions (ILEs), a key component of PN, provide energy and intervene in the modulation of inflammation. This was a secondary study of a randomized clinical trial at the Reina Sofia University Hospital (Murcia, Spain) for critically ill patients following major abdominal surgery that were administered PN supplemented with olive-oil-based ILE (OO-ILE, n = 29) or a mixed-lipid ILE (soybean oil, medium chain triglycerides, OO and fish oil, SMOF-ILE, n = 25). The effects on clinical outcomes, metabolic markers, oxidative stress, and inflammation were evaluated. No significant differences were observed between groups in the clinical parameters and outcomes, oxidative stress, or inflammatory markers. The within-group evaluation demonstrated an increase in total antioxidant capacity in both groups, while OO-ILE increased the levels of 15-F2t-isoprostane. In addition, the results showed that both mixtures reduced the release of IL-1β and IL-6. These findings suggest that both treatments had similar effects on oxidative stress and inflammatory response in this type of patient.

Peer Review Statement

All papers published in this volume have been reviewed through processes administered by the Editors. Reviews were conducted by expert referees to the professional and scientific standards expected of a proceedings journal published by IOP Publishing. • Type of peer review: Single Anonymous • Conference submission management system: Morressier • Number of submissions received: 26 • Number of submissions sent for review: 26 • Number of submissions accepted: 18 • Acceptance Rate (Submissions Accepted / Submissions Received × 100): 69.2 • Average number of reviews per paper: 2 • Total number of reviewers involved: 39 • Contact person for queries: Name: Nikolay Stoyanov Email: n_stoyanov@tu-sofia.bg Affiliation: Technical University of Sofia, Faculty of Automatics

Ролята на Университетската ботаническа градина София, за популяризиране и изучаване на растителното биоразнообразие

The article presents brief information about the foundation, structure and diversity of plant collections in the Botanical Garden of Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" in Sofia, with an emphasis on the role of this institution for the study, promotion and conservation of plant biodiversity.

Rocks and buildings in the Sofia City center - a geological and historical city tour

The most used rock materials that served to build the modern appearance of Sofia’s central streets and buildings are presented. Different local genetic types of rocks were utilized for the construction of modern Sofia: igneous rocks (monzonites, gabbros, rhyolites); sedimentary rocks (varieties of limestone and sandstones); and metamorphics (mainly marbles). A small part of rock materials was imported, mainly for the interior design of the buildings, for instance in Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, and others. The most used rock material for buildings and streets were the monzonites from the Vitosha Mountain, and this is the reason why Sofia City is noted as “the monzonite capital” of Bulgaria. The emblematic buildings, streets and squares in the city centre, with their rock building material, characteristics, and historical significance are briefly described.

Latent Class Analysis Reveals, in patient profiles, COVID-19–related better prognosis by calcifediol treatment than glucocorticoids

Calcifediol and glucocorticoids have been repositioned for the treatment of COVID-19 and may reduce severity, the need for intensive care unit admission and death. Objectiveto identify class or profiles of patients hospitalized and treated with COVID-19 pneumonia using latent class clustering methods to assess the clinical and prognostic relevance of the resulting patients’ profiles. Poor prognosis was defined as death or need for ICU admission, good prognosis, the opposite. With special interest in differential responses to calcifediol. SettingReina Sofia University Hospital, Córdoba Spain. PatientsRetrospective observational cohort study of patients admitted for COVID-19. ClinicalTrials.gov public database (NCT05819918). Inclusion criteria: (i) Age ≥ 18 and ≤ 90 years, (ii) Pneumonia characterized by the presence of infiltrates on chest X-ray or CT scan, (iii) SARS-CoV-2 infection, confirmed, and (iv) CURB Scale 65 >1. DesignLatent class analysis, for obtaining homogeneous clusters, without specifying a priori the belonging group, and selecting the optimal number of clusters by minimizing information criteria. Evaluating the differences between groups for each variable by means of chi-square, Fisher's exact test and Kruskal-Wallis test. Results707 patients hospitalized from 10 March 2020 until 4 March 2022 were included. For the treatment variable, differences were found between class 3 (60 % treated with calcifediol only) and classes 1 (less than 1 % calcifediol only vs. 82 % treated with both), 2 (less than 1 % calcifediol only vs. 82 % treated with both) and 4 (1 % calcifediol only vs. 84 % treated with both). Class 3, (60 % with calcifediol), had a significantly better prognosis compared to patients treated with glucocorticoids alone (OR: 15.2, 95 % CI: [3.73–142], p<0.001) or no treatment (OR: 7.38, 95 % CI: [2.63–30.2], p<0.001). Conclusionsour real-life study shows that calcifediol treatment significantly reduces the need for ICU admission and improved prognosis in patients hospitalized for COVID-19 pneumonia, especially in the profile of patients receiving it without glucocorticoids.

About Some Problems of Terminology Usage and Its Interpretation in Roman Legal Texts

The article is devoted to the study and teaching of Latin legal terminology at the Faculty of Law of Sofia University. It is presented in an appropriate didactic form in its authentic form in the writings of the Roman jurists and in their interpretation, but also in view of its historical development and use in modern legal terminology.

Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication between Coach and Trainees during Swimming Lessons

The article presents the process of communication between the coach and the trainees during swimming lessons. The focus falls on verbal communication through the use of terminology specific to the sport and non-verbal communication through the implementation of particular signs. Swimming is a sport that is a 465 Биляна Рангелова, Красимира Дешева, Петър Тодоров combination of specific physical movements of the body and a specific technique for breathing and exhaling in a non-human environment – water. Furthermore, swimming is suitable for practicing by children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), due to the fact that it allows the achievement of social integration, on the one hand, and the development of the physical condition of the body, on the other. Practicing the sport of swimming poses various challenges, as the person with SEND may have one or more disabilities that require an individual approach. Practicing the sport in an aquatic environment further complicates the communication between a coach and a trainee. In this respect, both verbal and non- verbal communication can be used. For instance, with visually impaired children, communication involves verbal commands and instructions that must be clear and understandable. For children with impaired hearing and/or speech, communication is carried out through gestures and facial expressions similar to sign language. The article will review the literature on the problem and will provide practical examples of the application of different types of communication during swimming lessons. The article has been written as part of the activities of the project “Innovative system of verbal and non-verbal means of communication within physical education and sports activities for children with SEND”, financed by the SUMMIT Sofia University Marking Momentum for Innovation and Technological Transfer Project.

Analysis of the Results of a Research Conducted on the Music Literacy of Students – Future Teachers

This article presents results of the musical notation skills of current students – future music teachers. The research was conducted at the beginning of the 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 academic year with students from Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridskiˮ, Faculty of Educational Sciences and Arts, major “Elementary School Pedagogy and Foreign Languageˮ before studying Didactics of music. The bachelor’s degree provides the acquisition of a teacher’s license after successful completion of the four-year course of study. The diploma of the future pedagogues gives the opportunity to teach the subject of Music in the initial stage of the secondary (general) school. For practical purposes, the study was carried out before the start of the lecture course on the Didactics of Music.

The ambiguities of intellectual dissent in late socialism: the case of Bulgaria

ABSTRACT The old totalitarian paradigm 1 – the model still commonly deployed across Central and Eastern Europe and beyond to describe and explain state socialism – painted an image of socialist regimes as autocratic and all-powerful systems of total control imposed on a paralyzed mass of people, where only heroic individuals resisted. The dominant interpretations of intellectual dissidence correspondingly still often overlook internal inconsistencies, tensions, and pluralism which characterize resistance in late socialism. In this contribution, we focus on intellectual work at the University of Sofia, Bulgaria, in the late 1970s and 1980s to trace some of the ways in which the totalitarian narrative and its key binary dissidents-system fails to capture the complexities of political and intellectual life in late state socialism. We show that a peculiar type of anti-totalitarianism – characterized more by pluralism and internal tensions – could be ascribed correctly to critical social science during the period, but rather than as a critique of state socialism, it should be understood as a critique of the alienating aspects of industrial modernity and should be contextualized in the nascent consumer-oriented transformation of actually existing socialism after the shift from heavy to light industries and the processes of destalinization after the 1960s.

A tribute to Christo Balarew on the occasion of his 90th birthday

Abstract The eminent Bulgarian chemist Christo Balarew was born on June 23, 1934 in Sofia. He received his MSc degree in chemistry from the Sofia University. Balarew devoted many years of his life to the service of Bulgarian chemical science and education. For most of his life he worked at the Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. He was a scientist, teacher, public figure, member of a number of international organizations, editorial boards of scientific journals, organizing and scientific committees of international scientific forums.

Peer Review Statement

All papers published in this volume have been reviewed through processes administered by the Editors. Reviews were conducted by expert referees to the professional and scientific standards expected of a proceedings journal published by IOP Publishing. 1. Type of peer review: Double anonymous 2. Conference submission management system: Morressier 3. Number of submissions received: 8 4. Number of submissions sent for review: 7 5. Number of submissions accepted: 8 6. Acceptance Rate (Submissions Accepted / Submissions Received × 100): 87.5 % 7. Average number of reviews per paper: 1.75 8. Total number of reviewers involved: 14 9. Contact person for queries: Name: Hristomir Yordanov Affiliation: Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski Email: hristomir.yordanov@phys.uni-sofia.bg * means value has been edited

Perception and Evaluation of Text from an Interview with a Real Person and an Interview with an Artificial Intelligence

The article presents a study of perception, understanding and evaluation of two interviews, the first one is performed with a real person (from an expert source), and the second is generated by the ChatGPT artificial intelligence (AI). The study covers 84 participants between the ages of 20 and 23, students in “Psychology”, “Bulgarian Philology”, “Slavic Philology”, and “Russian Philology” from the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. The research design is of the “between-group” type (in this case, two-group). The first experimental group consisted of 40 subjects evaluates the interview with a real celebrity. The second experimental group consisted of 44 subjects evaluates the interview taken by an artificial intelligence. Both interviews consisted of ten identical questions and ten corresponding answers. Each of the ten answers is evaluated by the participants using a Likert Scale composed of 5-point score scales, each of which is “continuous” with 11 possible answer positions (from “0” to “10”), as follows: [1] inadequate / fully adequate; [2] non-specific (general) / completely specific; [3] non-exhaustive / fully exhaustive; [4] questionable / completely realistic; and [5] unsatisfactory / 10-completely satisfactory. A statistical analysis was made by a two-group test (Two Sample T-Test Unequal Variance). It was established that: consolidated answers (series of maximum ratings) when working with the “artificial” interview; in two of the ten questions asked, a statistically significant difference was observed in favor of the artificial text; in one of the questions, a statistically significant difference is observed in favor of the real interview; no difference in emotional impact and interest in summary assessment of the both pieces of text.

Tribute

In my student years at the beginning of the 1990s at Sofia University, Bulgaria, fate led me to study with two extraordinary scholars – Prof. Dr. Miroslav Yanakiev and Prof. Dr. Encho Gerganov. Prof. Yanakiev laid the foundations of Bulgarian psycholinguistics, introducing the statistical methods in linguistics, and as his student, Prof. Gerganov continued and further developed his ideas. I had the great good fortune to learn from them and consider myself a student of them both. Actually, my scientific and academic activities were launched when I met Prof. Yanakiev, and we sought as a shared task to develop the first ABC textbook in Romani for Roma children in Bulgaria in 1993. Our extensive, strong cooperation continued until the end of Prof. Yanakiev’s life. After his death, I went on working more intensively with Prof. Gerganov, seeking to develop psycholinguistic studies, research and publications with him. Moreover, if I am known for my psycholinguist work today, I owe that in significant measure to my 33 years of collaboration with Prof. Gerganov. This tribute is dedicated to the anniversaries of the two scholars – in 2023 was the 100th anniversary of Miroslav Yanakiev, and in 2024, we celebrate the 85th birthday of Encho Gerganov. Miroslav Yanakiev (19.08.1923 – 09.11.1998), born in Sofia, was deservedly famous worldwide for his works on two Slavic languages: Bulgarian and Russian. In 1943, he graduated from the First Men's High School in Sofia, and the same year, he was enrolled in the Slavic Philology program at Sofia University. He graduated in 1947, and immediately after his graduation, he began work at the Faculty of History and Philology of the same university. He worked there until the end of his life in 1998, first as Assistant Professor, then as Associate Professor and then as Full Professor. In 1963, he earned the title Associate Professor with a habilitation monograph Българско стихознание “Bulgarian Poetics”. In 1979, he was promoted to Full Professor after completing his monograph "Стилистиката и езиковото обучение"/Stylistics and Language Teaching. After his retirement in 1988 and due to our cooperation, he began to work on child bilingualism, mainly with Roma and Turkish children and started publishing articles about the importance of minority mother tongues for the language and cognitive development of children. He was central in supporting my research in the field of Romani language and publishing schoolbooks for Turkish and Roma children. Encho Gerganov was born on March 18, 1939, in the town of Stara Zagora in Bulgaria. He graduated in Bulgarian Philology (specializing in linguistics and mathematical linguistics) at St. Kliment Ohridski University in Sofia. In the period 1968-1972, he was a doctoral student at the Institute of Linguistics of the ASSR in Moscow, where in 1972, he defended a dissertation entitled "Некоторые закономерности зрительного распознавания элементов текста" / Some Regularities of the Visual Recognition of Text Elements. Prof. Gerganov began his academic career at the Institute for Foreign Students in Sofia (1967-1989), where in 1977, he was granted the title Associate Professor earned with a habilitation monograph Психометрични методи за проверка и оценка на знанията по български език (Psychometric Methods for Testing and Assessment of Knowledge in Bulgarian Language). In 1988, he was promoted to Full Professor in recognition of his monograph "Памет и смисъл"/Memory and Meaning. From 1984 to 1988, Prof. Gerganov was the Institute's Deputy Rector. From 1989-2000, he worked at the Institute of Psychology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, where from 1991 to 2000, he headed the section on cognitive psychology and research methods, and from 1991 to 1995, he was the Director of the Institute. Prof. Gerganov was Deputy Minister of Public Education (1991-1992) and Director of the National Test Center (1994-1995). Professor Encho Gerganov was one of the first professors at the New Bulgarian University (NBU) and the first head of the Cognitive Science and Psychology Department (1992–2002) there. In 2009, he was awarded the title "Doctor Honoris Causa” by the Constantine the Philosopher University, Nitra, Slovakia. Together with Prof. Gerganov, we carried out many studies and co-authored numerous articles focused on Romani-Bulgarian and Turkish-Bulgarian bilingualism in Bulgaria. In 1999, we co-authored a monographic study: Герганов, E. и Кючуков, Хр. (1999). Oбразователни нагласи на ромите в България. София: Тилия / Gerganov, E. &amp; Kyuchukov, H. (1999). Educational Attitudes of Roma in Bulgaria. Sofia: Tilia. With his outstanding and pioneering work and research, I am confident that Prof. Gerganov brought the educational issues of minority children in Bulgaria to a higher scientific level. Professors Miroslav Yanakiev and Encho Gerganov deeply dedicated their academic lives to linguistics and psycholinguistics. Through their studies, research, and publications, they helped to change the lives of many in Bulgaria and Europe.

The Challenges of Pre-Graduation Field Practice for Students – Future Teachers

The focus of this article is the practical training of the students from the Pedagogy studies of the Faculty of Pedagogy at the Sofia University and the challenges they encounter during their pre-graduation field practice. The survey was conducted among the graduates in the academic year 2022/2023 and reveals the key role of the teacher-mentor in the formation of the functional professional competences of the future teachers. The results show satisfaction with the way the pre-graduation field practice is organized and the students’ academic preparation. The recommendations are in the direction of communication intern – teachermentor and the work between them.

Nowadays Culture of Poverty: Social-Pedagogical Dimensions and Spread in Bulgarian Bondition

The article presents the results of the study, part of the research program under the project “Nowadays culture of poverty - dimensions and spread among young people”, within the SUMMIT project of Sofia University. The text discusses the main features of the culture of poverty presented in the scholarly tradition and in the current interpretation that examines the culture through cultural frameworks, repertoires and narratives. An analysis of the results of semistructured interviews conducted with young people aged 20-34 and of focus groups with teachers is presented. The results show that most of the interviewees have a vague vision and vague goals for the future, show the absence of autonomy and initiative, reject the importance of effort in education and work, show low levels of responsibility. The analysis of the results of the focus reveals early characteristics reflecting beliefs, attitudes, characteristic of the culture of poverty, which in the period of youth acquire stability.

Artificial Intelligence, Algorithm Literacy, Locus of Control, and English Language Skills: a Study Among Bulgarian Students in Education

This research, conducted in June 2023 at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, aimed at gaining in-depth insights of the extent to which Bulgarian Internet users in tertiary education had developed comprehension of generative artificial intelligence (AI) models and algorithm literacy. For the purposes of this study, a scale measuring the knowledge of generative AI models was devised and implemented, and an existing algorithm literacy scale was tested. Altogether, 125 university students across various majors in the field of education took part in the research. Findings revealed that the newly developed scale on generative AI models displayed good reliability and correlated positively with the measure for algorithm knowledge and students’ self-reported language skills. Group differences in relation to students’ university major were found to be significant for knowledge and use of generative AI models, language skills, and coding skills. As hypothesized, students in media education displayed high scores on most scales.

Twenty-five-year mapping species of the superfamily Cercopoidea (Hemiptera, Auchenorrhyncha) in Bulgaria.

In Bulgaria, the superfamily Cercopoidea consists of 18 species in two families - Aphrophoridae and Cercopidae. Of these, 13 species of Aphrophoridae belong to the genera Philaenus, Neophilaenus, Aphrophora and Lepyronia and five species of Cercopidae are in Cercopis and Haematoloma. Over a period of 25 years of extensive research on the species of the superfamily in the country, a large amount of geo-referenced data has been collected on 17 of the species, which has significantly increased knowledge of their biogeography. The paper presents a dataset of the materials of the superfamily Cercopoidea deposited in the Zoological Collection of the University of Sofia (BFUS). The specimens were collected from 888 localities in Bulgaria over a period of 25 years (1997 to 2022). The Cercopoidea collection comprises 8722 specimens grouped into 6670 collection objects.The text provides data for each species, including a distribution map, regional literature taxon names and identifiers from eight taxonomic infrastructures (GBIF, BOLD, OpenBiodiv, BHL, COL, Plazi, EOL and TaxonWorks). It also includes data from literature and new records, phenology and altitudinal distribution in Bulgaria, as well as known host plants. Live photographs are provided for all species. A nanopublication presents the establishment of a new host plant, Asphodelinelutea (L.) Rchb., for the species Philaenussignatus Melichar, 1896.

Freud in Bulgaria: Psychoanalysis, Literature, Translation: An Experience with the Singular.

This contribution considers a monthly seminar, Literature and Psychoanalysis, that has been taking place at Sofia University (Sofia, Bulgaria) since 2017. Three of the seminar's founders reflect on the transferences between literature and psychoanalysis, and on the ways in which literature and psychoanalysis can meaningfully converse. The exchange also touches on the fate of Freud's textual legacy in communist and post-communist Bulgaria.

Думи на водещия

Editor Words DOI 10.55206/EBMA3053 Prof. Dr Ivanka Mavrodieva, DSc Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” Email: mavrodieva@phls.uni-sofia.bg Issue 59 (April 2024) of the Rhetoric and Communication Journal includes eight publications, which announce the results of research, among which surveys of parliamentary rhetoric and communication, which has manifestations in media and on the Internet, in politics and in society. The section “Media and Internet Communication” brings together four articles that contribute to the derivation of concepts, the delineation of the boundaries of new fields of academic research and the renewal of the categorical and conceptual apparatus in several scientific fields, for example through the terms “media culture”, “media transformation”, “cultural software” and “infor¬mation aesthetics”, “cancel culture”, “digital oral histories”, “hybrid risks and threats”. Simeon Vassilev outlines various scientific approaches to the definition of the term “media culture”; he presents theories, concepts, approaches and ad¬vo¬cates the need for a coherent theory of media transformation and media culture; the author draws conclusions about the phenomenon of media culture as a social practice. Desislava Dobreva explores a topic that is characterized by topicality and social sensitivity and examines the notion of “cancel culture”; she studies the phenomenon theoretically and historically; the author analyses current events and identifies rhetorical aspects in this specific virtual communication. Nikolina Ivanova-Bell examines the development of digital oral histories, as well as the opportunities they offer in the field of university education and academic libraries; on the basis of analyses she establishes the potential for enriching research and teaching experience in an academic environment. Andrey Velchev examines hybrid warfare from an interdisciplinary perspective; he analyses the role of the media and the Internet; the author presents the activities of institutions in identifying and neutralising hybrid threats, and in formulating and implementing strategic tasks regarding hybrid warfare. In the section “Political Communication and Parliamentary Rhetoric” two articles are included; they are written on the basis of a theoretical observation and include results of research into concepts in the fields of political science, political communication and parliamentary rhetoric in contemporary Bulgaria. Atanas Zhdrebev’s publication is devoted to populism; he discusses Takis Papas’s concept of populism as democratic illiberalism; the author gives examples of contemporary political phenomena and processes from different countries. Sofia-Nikol Nikolova examines the argumentation and rhetorical figures used by MPs during debates on significant domestic political issues and votes of no confidence and presents the results of an analysis of parliamentarian rhetoric in the 49th National Assembly in Bulgaria. The issue has a section “Contemporary Studies” in which there are options for presenting not only books, but also their contributions at the theoretical, methodological and research levels. The review of Professor Danail Danov’s book “Foundations of Media Pedagogy. A guide to the world of digital culture and its tools” is metaphorically entitled “a guide to the digital modus vivendi” by Simeon Vassilev. Professor Angel Angelov introduces Radeya Gesheva’s book “Enigmas and Paradigms in Some Twentieth-Century Italian Women Writers”. Prof. Dr. Ivanka Mavrodieva is a lecturer in rhetoric, argumentation, PR and virtual communication at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. She is the author of 15 books (including “Virtual rhetoric: from diaries to social networks”, “Political rhetoric in Bulgaria: from rallies to Web 2.0 (1989 - 2012)”, “Rhetoric and Public Re¬lations”, “Online Course on Rhetoric”) and 120 articles. Her research interests are in the fields of contemporary rhetoric, virtual communication, argumentation, PR and business communication. Rhetoric and Communications Journal, issue 59, April 2024 Read the Original in Bulgarian and English

Rescue for Political Use: The Populist Consensus on the Fate of Bulgarian Jews During the Second World War

Abstract In recent years, the fate of the Jews in Bulgaria during the Second World War has aroused the research interest of humanities scholars from various disciplines, with a number of studies published (see e.g., and many of the following cited (Avramov 2012. “Спасение” и падение. Микроикономика на държавния антисемитизъм в България, 1940–1944 [“Rescue” and fall. Microeconomics of State Anti-semitism in Bulgaria, 1940–1944]. Sofia: Sofia University “St. Kl. Ohridski; Daneva 2013; Krsteva 2015; Koleva 2017)). Many rely on research on the construction of memory. At the same time, fewer research efforts seem to have focused on how the topic has become politicized in the years since 1989 (see e.g. Benatov 2013. “Debating the Fate of Bulgarian Jews during World War II.” In Bringing the Dark Past to Light the Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Europe, edited by John-Paul Himka, and Joanna Beata Michlic, 108–31. University of Nebraska Press; Ragaru 2020. Et les Juifs bulgares furent sauvе… Une histoire des savoirs sur la Shoah en Bulgarie. Paris: Science Po). The aim of this paper is to offer precisely this perspective on the topic of non/rescue, and in the last ten years. Politicization has traditionally been understood as the process of attributing salience to an issue of public interest through various channels such as political discourse and media, and in the presence of the multiple and diverse opinions associated with it (de Wilde, Pieter. 2011. “No polity for old politics? A framework for analyzing the politicization of European integration.” Journal of European Integration 33 (5): 559–75; de Wilde, Pieter, Anna Leupold, and Henning Schmidtke. 2016. “Introduction: the differentiated politicisation of European governance.” West European Politics 39 (1): 3–22). In some texts on the politicization of the migration crisis in Bulgaria in the years since 2012, the author shows how a topic can be politicized in the absence of political debate and in the context of a dominant populist understanding, multiplied by various power actors – politicians, institutions, media and intellectuals (see e.g. Otova, Ildiko, and Evelina Staykova. 2022. Migration and Populism in Bulgaria. London: Routledge). For the purposes of this paper, by politicization the author will understand the blurring of ideological differences of interpretations of who the savior is in a populist consensus around the construction of the rescue narrative for foreign policy use, but mostly as a nation-building narrative. The focus of this article is on the last ten years, in which the political interpretations and actions surrounding the commemoration of the 70th in 2013 and 75th in 2018 and the 80th anniversary in 2023 of the events surrounding the so-called rescue of Bulgarian Jews are particularly interesting. It is during these last years that populism has become the norm for the political scene in Bulgaria. Populism is not the obvious entrance to the topic, but it is the political framework within which the politicization of the topic of the rescue is developing, and a possible theoretical entrance. Populism became a persistent part of Bulgarian political life more than a decade after the beginning of the democratic changes of 1989. There are several key factors involved in this process-exhaustion of the cleavages of the transition period, but especially the transformation of party politics into symbolic ones (Otova, Ildiko, and Evelina Staykova. 2022. Migration and Populism in Bulgaria. London: Routledge). Symbolic politics deal more with emotions and less with ratio and facts; they build narratives that are often nationally affirming. The article does not claim to be exhaustive, especially in its presentation of historical facts. The limits of this rather political science approach are many. On the other hand, however, it adds to the research effort with a missing glimpse into the interpretations of the no/rescue theme and could open the field for further in-depth research.