The International Youth Literary Festival “Friendship – Meaning and Salvation” will gather in Burgas from June 18 to 21, 2023, young authors from Bulgaria and abroad to put the finishing touches on the contest “Who saves one human life, saves the whole universe”. The success of the first festival proved to the organizers from the Center for Jewish-Bulgarian Cooperation “Alef” that they had found an optimal way for fruitful and emotionally enriching meetings with and through art, against the background of the romantic Burgas summer. The program of the second edition of the festival once again offers an opportunity to touch the work created by valuable Bulgarian artists, as well as to present the 30 young authors from 9 countries, nominated in the tenth literary competition – Bulgaria, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Spain, Austria, Israel. The theme of the festival days is based on the 80th anniversary of the rescue of Bulgarian Jews during the Second World War and the expression of respect for the innocent victims of the Holocaust. The forum aims to support the development of young literary talents, to encourage their civic engagement, to create friendships and mutual understanding between young people from different countries.
The Center for Contemporary Art and Library will once again host the festival events. The organizers from “Alef” have bet on creative workshops with beloved authors, such as Georgi Burdarov, Nedyalko Yordanov, Maria Kasimova-Moase, Christopher Buxton. They will share their creative experiences with future writers and give them guidance to follow on their own path. Film art will have its own niche in the festival. Documentaries and feature films on the subject of the Holocaust will be presented. A traditional trip by boat to the island of St. Anastasia, which is a tried and tested environment for the birth of new friendships and the scope of the imagination.
Part of the festival is the first International Youth Conference “Saving the Bulgarian Jews – a possible model of behavior for young people today”, which will meet Bulgarian and foreign specialists in history and social sciences with young authors and will bridge the memory of the past events to the future and through discussion in the context of today’s reality will attempt to identify moral categories to be followed.
The culmination of the festival will be the solemn ceremony-spectacle, at which the winners of the literary competition will be announced and awarded. It will be held at the Burgas International Congress Center on June 20, 2023, at 6 p.m.