The Monument to the Unknown Soldier (, ''Pametnik na Neznayniya voin'') is a monument in the centre of

Sofia Sofia is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain, in the western part of the country. The city is built west of the Is ...

, the capital of

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

, located just next to the 6th-century Church of St Sophia, on 2 Paris Street. The monument commemorates the hundreds of thousands of Bulgarian soldiers who died in wars defending their homeland. Ceremonies involving the

President of Bulgaria The president of the Republic of Bulgaria (, romanised: ''Prezident na Republika Bŭlgariya'') is the head of state of Bulgaria and the commander-in-chief of the Bulgarian Army. The official residence of the president is at Boyana Residence, S ...

and foreign state leaders are often performed here. The monument was designed by architect Nikola Nikolov and opened on September 22, 1981, the 1300th anniversary of establishment of the Bulgarian state.Sofia News Agency, "Sofia City Hall Guards Unknown Soldier Monument", May 4, 2010
Retrieved December 7, 2011 The Monument to the Unknown Soldier features an

eternal flame An eternal flame is a flame, lamp or torch that burns for an indefinite time. Most eternal flames are ignited and tended intentionally, but some are natural phenomena caused by natural gas leaks, peat fires and coal seam fires, all of which ca ...

, turf from

Stara Zagora Stara Zagora (, ) is a city in Bulgaria, and the administrative capital of Stara Zagora Province. It is located in the Upper Thracian Plain, near the cities of Kazanlak, Plovdiv, and Sliven. Its population is 121,582 making it the sixth largest c ...

and Shipka Pass, sites of two of the most important battles of the Russo-Turkish War of Liberation (the Battle of Stara Zagora and the Battle of Shipka Pass), a sculpture of a

lion The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large Felidae, cat of the genus ''Panthera'', native to Sub-Saharan Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body (biology), body; a short, rounded head; round ears; and a dark, hairy tuft at the ...

(a national symbol of Bulgaria) by the noted sculptor Andrey Nikolov, as well as a stone inscription of a stanza (part of ''The New Graveyard Above Slivnitsa'' 1885 poem) by the national writer

Ivan Vazov Ivan Minchov Vazov (; – 22 September 1921) was a Bulgarian poet, novelist, and playwright, often referred to as "the Patriarch of Bulgarian literature". He was born in Sopot, a town in the Rose Valley of Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Em ...

: After the end of the First World War, a group of Bulgarians proposed building the monument. However, strong opposition to the building of this monument arose. Some Bulgarian intellectuals argued that a monument of an unknown soldier is unacceptable since it would imply that the names of the soldiers have been forgotten. "Not a single soldier shall be forgotten who gave his life in this war and in all other wars for the freedom of Bulgaria!". The monument was designed but was not displayed because of the above-mentioned arguments. The lion itself was considered an abuse for a long time because it was sitting. The pose was considered a metaphor of surrender to the national ideas.

References

Unknown Soldier

1981 sculptures {{bulgaria-struct-stub