"The dying fire is often rekindled thanks to a few remaining embers." With these warm words, Slavic philology professor Krassimir Stantchev inspires hope that the fading interest in the Bulgarian alphabet, the Bulgarian language and Bulgarian culture abroad will one day rekindle its glow.

At a recent international conference on Cyrillic, held in Sofia and Plovdiv with the participation of scholars from eleven countries, the participants acknowledged a disturbing fact: the number of Bulgarian studies lectures abroad is decreasing with each passing year, and today there are only twenty-nine. 

The situation is so serious, according to a professor at Italy's Roma Tre University, that there is literally talk of saving the teaching of Bulgarian in Europe.

"Indeed, language can be used for all sorts of purposes - from the most peaceful communication to the most violent confrontation," replies Professor Krassimir Stantchev. 

"The declaration of war is also done with language, unless it is a completely treacherous attack from behind. So this is a difficult question, because it involves conscience, not just language. In my opinion, aggression and propaganda can be neutralised by spreading the truth in schools. 

Unfortunately, however, there is a great deal of "backwardness" in school teaching when it comes to scientific facts about the alphabet, about language, about history, facts that scientists continue to establish.

There are new discoveries, new interesting moments, and all of this should be presented to students in an engaging and interesting way, but not through TikTok and other smartphone entertainment. Of course, there are people who close their eyes to the truth, and I'm afraid there's nothing you can do about that.

There are currently around 300 million people in the world who write in Cyrillic, and all of them - along with Bulgarian language teachers - can be called its ambassadors.