In Haskovo, the new issue of LIK magazine, "The Press – 180 Years Since Bulgarian Eagle", was presented. It features book publisher Alexander Paskalev, said Milen Valchev, chief curator at the Regional Historical Museum. The event took place at the BTA National Press Club in the city.
Paskalev was born in Haskovo in 1879 and is called the "founder of modern book publishing" in Bulgaria. Valchev said Haskovo gave Paskalev to the Bulgarian press.
Paskalev was orphaned young and had a hard childhood. He finished reserve officer school and became a teacher, but was fired. Valchev said the reason was too much idealism and honesty.
Paskalev took part in the Balkan War and the First World War, and Ivan Vazov dedicated a poem to him because of this.
In 1908 he set up the publishing house "Alexander Paskalev and Co", a limited partnership. He wanted to bring modern European standards of book publishing to Bulgaria. That is how the so-called "pocket format" caught on here: small books that fit in an inside pocket or in the hand.
In 1909 "Universal Library" began to come out, a Bulgarian counterpart of the Russian series "World Literature". Valchev showed book No. 3 from it: the play "The Taming of the Shrew" by William Shakespeare, translated from English by Pencho Slaveykov and Peyo Yavorov. The Regional Historical Museum in Haskovo has kept most of the series' pocket-format books.
Paskalev's end was tragic, Valchev said. The publisher printed many authors who never caught on, and some of his books sold slowly. He also published many school textbooks, but built up large debts. The 1921 spelling reform also had some effect.
At the end of his life Paskalev returned to Haskovo, forgotten by the people he had helped and by his relatives. He died of pneumonia in the local hospital in early November 1946.