A Valuable Donation for “Sava Dobroplodni" Regional Library

More than 120 valuable books merged to the fund of the regional library a few days ago. The donation was made by the heir of a famous family of industrialists Sliven - Iliya Kalov. This is not the first gesture of charity that Kalov made to the biggest book treasury of Sliven. Following the deeds of another famous resident of Sliven - Boris Simitchiev – he has acknowledged the regional library as a place to submit for storage and use valuable books from his personal library to be kept for generations. The first major donation made by Kalov to Sliven Regional Library dates from 2000. As a gratitude to the patriotic gesture of the donor a separate collection Iliya Kalov will be formed in “Sava Dobroplodni” Regional Library.

The donation by Kalov includes books in the fields of politics, history, folklore, philosophy, regional studies, fiction, reference books etc. Among the valuable regional publications are titles such as "Hadji Dimitar and Stefan Karadja and their comrades”  /1930/, “A Jubilee book of the church St. Nicola" / 1934 /, "Dr. Ivan Seliminski" / 1935 / - by Nikola Stanev, "Establishment and fighting of Christo Botyov’s and Hadji Dimitar’s detachments" /1940/ - by Ivan Bunardzhiev, “Hadji Dimitar” /1940/ - by Al. Nedev, “Seliminski’slLife, work, ideas” /1938/ - by M. Arnaudov, the series “Library Dr. Ivan Seliminski” etc.

The donation includes the books by Iliya Kalov: the generic study " An Attempt for describing the history of Lolov’s from Medven village, Kotel region” /Sofia, 2003/, a biographical chronicle of the life in exile of Nikolay Nikolov Metodiev “The Other Side of Freedom /Sofia, 2007/ and the valuable regional study “An Attempt for a history of the textile company “Iliya G. Kalov” – Sliven” / Sofia, 2010/.

 In his latest book Kalov presents the history of one of the oldest textile companies in Sliven.The factory was purchased in 1890 and later rebuilt, enlarged and modernized by the Kalov’s and in the period from 1905 until its nationalization on December 23, 1947 it produced wool fabrics and yarns of excellent quality and it was a major supplier to the palace, the army and all government offices. The attached photographs and documentary materials made the book even more valuable to researchers of the history of Sliven textile industry.

The books from the donation will be made available for library’s users soon.