Is it true that Bulgaria's national holiday, March 3, has been removed from the content of second-grade textbooks? No, that's not true: This day is nationally celebrated and holds a central place in those textbooks.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on February 5, 2024, with the caption (translated from Bulgarian to English by Lead Stories staff):
What more? How long will we put up with them? March 3 disappeared as an official holiday from the second grade textbook
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Feb 8, 20:04:55 2024 UTC)
The false claim that Bulgaria's national holiday, March 3, has been removed from second-grade textbooks as an official holiday has been circulating on social media, for example here and here (archived here and here).
March 3, recognized as Liberation Day (archived here), marks the liberation of Bulgaria during the Russo-Turkish War (1877-78), which led to the re-establishment of Bulgarian statehood. This day holds a central place in the two available second-grade versions of "Okolen svyat" ("Local Studies") and "Rodinoznanie" ("Native Studies") textbooks of Prosveta publishing house.
Prosveta-Sofia textbooks have the following text (as translated):
Every country has its own national holiday, which is the most significant public holiday in the country and is associated with a notable event in its history. The national holiday of the Republic of Bulgaria is March 3, the day we celebrate the liberation of our country from Ottoman rule.
(Source: "Rodinoznanie" textbook, Second Grade, bg.e-prosveta.bg screenshot taken on Thu Feb 8, 21:15:42 2024 UTC)
In the second-grade "Rodinoznanie" textbook of Prosveta Plus, the text (as translated) related to March 3 read:
On March 3 every year, our country celebrates its national holiday. The date of the national holiday is related to the liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule. One of the symbols of our country is the coat of arms.
(Source: "Rodinoznanie" textbook, Second Grade, bg.e-prosveta.bg screenshot taken on Thu Feb 8, 21:42:43 2024 UTC)
In an e-mail to Lead Stories dated February 10, 2024, Prosveta Publishing Group team stated:
Thank you for contacting us and giving us the opportunity to refute the lies that are being spread on the Internet, that the Local Studies textbook for the 2nd grade of 'Prosveta - Sofia' Publishing House, authored by L. Zafirova and S. Lazarova, lacks Bulgaria's national holiday - March 3.
Lesson No. 26 is dedicated precisely to our national holiday, March 3. The Local Studies textbook has been out of date for several years now - the subject is now called Native Studies and in the textbook currently used, lesson No. 26 is also dedicated to the national holiday - March 3. Moreover, the authors have correctly pointed out that every country has public holidays. Among them, the most important one is the national holiday, and for Bulgaria that is March 3. The lesson for the national holiday is followed by a summary lesson with a calendar of all public holidays, and March 3 is also included. Free access to the PDFs of our textbooks is available on the Digital page of the Ministry of Education and Culture, as well as on the e-prosveta.bg platform. The textbooks are approved by the Ministry of Education and Culture and correspond to the curriculum for the respective class.
