Алекси Попов [Alexi Popov]
30 September 2000 ·
volume 11 · pp. 147–159 ·
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Abstract: [no abstract available originally]
[Summary]: The National Museum of Natural History (the former Royal Museum) is one of the oldest research institutes in Bulgaria with a 110-year history. Its journal, Bulletin of the Royal Institutes of Natural History in Sofia (Izvestia na Tsarskite prirodonauchni instituti v Sofia; 16 volumes, 1928–1943), contains substantial scientific contributions in zoology and botany and descriptions of 260 taxa and forms of animals and plants new to the science. It has played a considerable role in the attainment of a high international recognition of the Museum. The journal was initiated and financed by King Boris III. It was edited and published by Dr Iwan Buresch, member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. It comprises 168 papers, mainly in German, written by 15 Bulgarian and 62 foreign authors. Another journal. Bulletin of the Zoological Institute with Museum (Izvestia na Zoologicheskia institut s muzei; vol. 10–41, 1961–1974), was published in the years when the Museum lost its independent status. In 1975 the Scientific Secretariate of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences decided to start the publishing of a new periodical series at the request of the Museum. For ten years the annual offers of the Museum for the publication of the first issues of the journal were refused. The series was named Historia naturalis bulgarica. Ten of its issues were published in the period of 1989–1999. The main trends in the development of the journal in this period are: to increase the volume of the issues; to switch over to autonomous publishing; to increase the number of papers written in foreign languages; to improve the quality of the illustrations. The printing of the first five issues was financed by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and that of the remaining five by the Ministry of the Environment and the National Museum of Natural History. The ten issues comprise 1144 pages of 114 papers, written mostly in Bulgarian or in English, and of 29 short notes. A list of their titles is given in the paper. The total number of the authors is 61. The journal is sent out for book exchange up to 184 scientific institutions abroad by the Central Library of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.