REGULATION
IX INTERNATIONAL LITERARY YOUTH COMPETITION
“WHOEVER SAVES ONE HUMAN LIFE, SAVES A WHOLE UNIVERSE” 2021
Organizer: Center for Jewish-Bulgarian Cooperation “Alef”
Partners: The competition is held with the partnership of Burgas Municipality, Ministry of Education and Science, National Palace of Children, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews – Warsaw, Poland
Topic: “ EXTRAORDINARY ACTIONS OF ORDINARY PEOPLE”
Eligibility: High school students from Bulgaria and abroad are welcomed to participate in the competition based in two categories:
- from 14 to 19 years, Bulgarian high school students
- from 14 to 19 years, high school students from Europe and Israel
Genre: an artistic narrative based on a historical event or a personality
Requirements: Participants should present their literary work in their native language, written particularly for this essay contest. It should not be a published work and should not have participated in other competitions before.
Every participant can send one literary work only. The narrator will need to travel back to the times of the Holocaust and create a literary work, which should be looking to answer on the following questions:
Who is the savior, who helped Jews during their genocide? What made him/her risk his/her life to save another? How does it feel to be in danger and to rely only on the courage and the morale of a friend? How is a friendship built and maintained, when it is in grave danger?
There are a lot of examples of dignified behavior and fateful choices that people with high morale did in order to save Jews. Hidden in the memory, they wait to be resurrected in modern times. Essays that are based on historical and authentic stories will be considered with priority.
The jury will highly appreciate the author’s research – the search for eyewitnesses or their heirs, as well as the creative recreation of their memories.
Content:
5 Word/ PC pages, A4
Participants must indicate their full name, short introduction of themselves, full address for correspondence and e-mail
Deadline:
The materials should be sent to the following e-mail: center.alef@gmail.com until February 1, 2022.
Evaluation:
The short stories will be evaluated by an international jury who will nominate 20 best performed participants from Bulgaria and abroad.
Awarding ceremony:
All nominees will be invited to an awarding ceremony in June 2022 in Burgas, Bulgaria.
The nominated stories will be published in a book collection in 2022, by Center Alef. The stories will also be uploaded on Alef’s website: www.alef-bg.org
Awardees: The jury will announce the winners in two categories:
- Bulgarian participants
- International participants
Prizes:
- Participation in the 3-day International Literary Youth Festival “Friendship – Meaning and Salvation” in Burgas, Bulgaria as well as participation in the awarding ceremony of the literary contest “Whoever saves one human life, saves a whole universe ” in June 2022 at the expense of the organizers
- Monetary prize for the best performed participants
- An opportunity for the Bulgarian participants for annual scholarships to those who receive I, II and III place
- Visiting tourist attractions in Burgas
- Certificate of participation and ranking
- Books
Announcement of the results: The results will be announced at the awarding ceremony in Burgas in June 2022.
* The organizers reserve the right to make changes
