Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Bulgarian lev
Summary
The lev (лев, plural: лева, левове / leva, levove; ISO 4217 code: BGN; numeric code: 975) is the currency of Bulgaria. In old Bulgarian the word "lev" meant "lion", the word 'lion' in the modern language is lаv (ɫɤf; in Bulgarian: лъв). The lev is divided in 100 stotinki (стотинки, singular: stotinka, стотинка). Stotinka in Bulgarian means "a hundredth" and in fact is a translation of the French term "centime". Grammatically the word "stotinka" comes from the word "sto" (сто) - a hundred.
Since 1997, the lev has been in a currency board arrangement with initially the Deutsche Mark at a fixed rate of BGL 1000 to DEM 1. After the introduction of the euro and the redenomination of the lev in 1999, this has resulted in a fixed rate to the euro of BGN 1.95583 : EUR 1. Since 2020, the lev has been a part of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM II). The lev is scheduled to be supplanted by the euro on 1 January 2025.
The currency's name comes from the archaic Bulgarian word "lev," which meant lion.
The lion' has been the national symbol of Bulgaria over the centuries. Bulgaria, the lion features in numerous historical monuments. The oldest images, found on slates in the city of Stara Zagora, date back to the 9-10 century AD. A lion is depicted on The Madara Horseman - an impressive medieval rock relief carved into a towering rock plateau in northeastern Bulgaria, which is on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. In the Middle Ages Bulgarian kings such as Ivan Shishman, one of the last rulers of the Second Bulgarian kingdom, celebrated the lion as a symbol of power.
In the time of Bulgarian national awakening in the years of Ottoman bondage, the lion was considered and widely used as a major national symbol. Paisii of Hilendar, a discerning monastic and a key Revival figure, mentioned in his ground-breaking tome Istorija Slavjanobolgarskaja that Bulgarians had a lion on their kings’ royal seal: a symbol of the bravery, courage and invincibility of Bulgarian warriors, who fought “like lions”.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.