On June 6, 2025, the conference "The Bulgarian Northwest in the European Southeast through the Ages" was held in the city of Montana, organized by the branch of the IBSCT-BAS and the Regional Academic Center in Montana (RAC - Montana) in partnership with the Municipality of Montana and the Regional Historical Museum (RHM).

The forum was opened by Prof. Alexandre Kostov, Dr. habil. (IBSCT-BAS), Corresponding Member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Participants were welcomed by the Mayor of the city, Mr. Zlatko Zhivkov, followed by greetings from the coordinator of the RAC - Montana, Eng. Valeri Georgiev, and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vanya Ivanova, Director of RHM - Montana.

The conference, which is held every year, is the seventh in a row. It brought together researchers from institutes of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and historians from the region. One of the topics discussed was related to the migration processes in the Bulgarian Northwest in the past and today. For example, the paper by Prof. Raia Zaimova, Dr. habil. and Assist. Prof. Dr. Margarita Dobreva (IBSCT-BAS) introduced the audience to the Hungarian emigration to Vidin according to documents stored in the Ottoman archives in Istanbul (1849-1850). The presentation by Vladimir Paunovski (IBSCT-BAS) was dedicated to “The Jews from Vidin as migrants in the 16th–18th centuries”. Nelly Stoyanova (RHM - Vratsa) spoke about the migration waves in the Bulgarian Northwest during the Revival period.

Most of the other papers were delivered by collaborators of the historical museums of the region and referred to different aspects of the general topic in a wide chronological range. In her presentation, Dr. Evgeniya Naydenova (IM - Oryahovo) presented a prehistoric settlement near the village of Ostrov, Oryahovo municipality, as a contact zone between the late Neolithic societies on both sides of the Danube River. The report by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vanya Ivanova, dedicated to the application of innovative practices from the field of new museology in the contemporary development of the Regional Historical Museum - Montana also aroused interest. Other representatives of RHM - Montana also participated with papers, such as Marius Georgiev presenting the main moments of the Bulgarian-Yugoslav and Bulgarian-Serbian border festivals before and after the Second World War, and Daniel Yordanov – the awards at the Regional Historical Museum - Montana.

Along with the historians, the participating literary scholars also gave interesting and useful papers. Prof. Dr. Plamen Antov (Institute of Literature at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) spoke about the “Small Fatherland” in the lyrics of Ivan Davidkov: places and nostalgia, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lyudmila Mindova (IBSCT-BAS) on “Europe and Bulgaria in the Contemporary Poetry of the Bulgarian Northwest”, and Dr. Mitko Novkov (BNR-Program “Hristo Botev”) presented his paper “The Different Spaces of the Northwest Compared to the Southeast of Europe”.

An extremely interesting report was delivered by Acad. Yachko Ivanov (BAS), who presented the development of higher education in the Northwest through a number of projects and implementations after 1989.

Presented papers, as well as the discussions that followed, not only aroused the interest of the local audience, but reconfirmed the contribution to scholarly research in the region of the already traditional joint conferences between the Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Thracology “Prof. Alexander Fol”, the Regional Academic Center - Montana and RHM - Montana. The scholarly forum is yet another proof of the successful cooperation, which we hope to continue in the future.