A photo exhibition in Ruse presents the tragic events of the Bosilegrad pogrom in 1917.

Wednesday, 02 September 2026

The photo exhibition "The Pogrom and Massacre in Bosilegrad Region 15–16 May 1917" will be presented on September 4 /Friday/ at 10 a.m. in the lobby in front of the Plenary Hall of the Ruse Municipality. The exhibition includes 21 glass photographic plates and is dedicated to one of the most difficult events in the history of the Bulgarian population in Kraishte during the First World War and will be available to visitors with free admission.
The author of the exhibition is Assoc. Prof. Dr. Angel Dzhonev - Chairman of the Scientific Institute "Western Suburbs" and the Cultural and Information Center in Bosilegrad. The organizers of the presentation in Ruse are the Regional Union of Reserve Officers and Sergeants - Ruse and the Ruse Municipality.
The exhibition presents the events of May 15–16, 1917, when a Serbian armed detachment, commanded by Kosta Pečanac, attacked Bosilegrad and the surrounding villages. According to the researched documents, the detachment, consisting of about 250 people, crossed the border and entered the area along the Ljubatska River valley. Within two days, civilians were killed, Bosilegrad and a number of villages were set on fire, and the property of hundreds of families was destroyed or looted.
According to a report cited in the study by Assoc. Prof. Angel Dzhonev, homes and outbuildings of 317 households were destroyed, property, livestock and food supplies were looted, and the damage was estimated at about 2.5 million leva at the time.
The exhibition is particularly valuable for the photographs taken immediately after the pogrom by Yordan Zahariev, a well-known resident of Bosilegrad, later a scientist, ethnographer and corresponding member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. After the events, he documented the destruction and left a valuable visual account of the consequences of the tragedy. The preserved photographic collection is today kept in the Yordan Zahariev Fund of the Regional History Museum in Kyustendil.