Bulgaria has seen many great civilisations pass through its country throughout history. Romans, Thracians, Celts, Greeks and Ottomans have all been here and Bulgaria has managed to retain the best of these cultures while also maintaining its own national identity.

The Cyrillic alphabet, which is used in a number of Eastern European and Asian countries, originates from Bulgaria and the nation has as such also managed to produce high quality authors and poets to complement this. Kapka Kassapova is one of the most recent of such voices to be heard and has won great acclaim in her resident Britain for her poetry and especially for Street Without a Name. Geo Milev is another Bulgarian poet who deserves to be mentioned, unfortunately his life was cut short when he was murdered in a political purge in 1925. Sofia-born writer and jazz-musician Viktor Paskov has won awards for his novel A Ballad For Georg Henig as has poet and author Georgi Gospodinov for his work.

Cultural interests and intellectual curiosity seem to be at the heart of Bulgarian life.This is the home of Julia Kristeva and Tzvetan Todorov, two famous theorists of literature, now important professors in Parisian universities. Bulgaria also has a growing talent pool within cinema with names such as Kamen Kalev, Dimitar Mitovski and Javor Gardev who won prestigious awards for his 2008 black comedy Zift.

This country has a long tradition of folk music that draws on the influences of the various civilisations that have taken residence here at different points throughout history, but there is also a contemporary scene to be found in Bulgaria. Jazz-musician Theodosii Spassov has won a host of international awards for his music, as has jazz-clarinetist Ivo Papazov for his. For those more inclined towards electronic music Deep Zone Project is worth a closer listen. Having represented Bulgaria in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2008 they have now built up a considerable fan base throughout Eastern Europe.