Bulgaria marks National Revival Figures' Day today, Sunday 1 November. The country honours its educators, writers, revolutionaries and spiritual leaders on this day, historian Ivanka Deleva, chief curator of the history exhibition at the Regional Museum in Burgas, told Bulgarian National Radio.

These figures, known as "buditeli" or "awakeners", kept Bulgarians' national identity, culture, language and historical memory alive through the centuries.

Deleva said these people did not come from outside. The nation produced them itself, in very hard times. "The Bulgarian people bring forth from within such people, whom we today call awakeners," she said.

She believes their work has a wider meaning. Through their deeds and lives, she said, the awakeners helped Bulgarians stand level with other nations in Europe. She linked this to the words of the Apostle: "through their deeds, through their lives, so that the Bulgarian people would be equal to the other European peoples, as the apostle Vasil Levski bequeathed to us."

Deleva also explained why the memory of the awakeners matters today. A people that does not know its past can easily be manipulated and destroyed, she said. For that reason, she said, Bulgarians must know their roots.