The foundations of the museum work in Sliven were laid as early as the Bulgarian National Revival period when patriotically-minded citizens collected relics of the time of the Bulgarian Medieval Kingdom. The real foundation of the museum work began immediately after the liberation of the town from the Ottoman rule when the Committee of the Moscow Ethnographic Society was founded on 14th February 1878 in Sliven. Ten years later, on 27th January 1888 a learning society was founded with the aim of studying the district of Sliven in every aspect. The museum of that community centre was founded in 1913, the year of the earliest document about its existence. The beginning of that museum was laid with 12 paintings by Dimitar Dobrovich, a painter from Sliven, from the Revival period. His heirs made a donation of these pictures in 1905. Then followed new donations of art and museum valuables, made to the community centre. In 1951 the museum of the community centre was made into a state property, and it was gradually turned into a local scientific and cultural institution, initially run by the Town Council, and since 1959 it has been run by the District Council of Sliven.
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