Sculptor Vezhdi Rashidov has died after a short illness, his family said. The Ivan Vazov National Theatre will host the farewell ceremony on Thursday, 12 November, at 11:00.

GERB leader Boyko Borisov paid tribute to him on Facebook today. "It is hard to find words when someone you walked such a long road with is gone," Borisov wrote.

What happened before: Sculptor Vezhdi Rashidov dies. Borisov says goodbye on Facebook

Rashidov served as culture minister twice: from 27 July 2009 to 13 March 2013, and from 7 November 2014 to 27 January 2017. He sat in seven parliaments: the 41st (14 to 27 July 2009), the 42nd (2013 and 2014), the 43rd (27 October to 7 November 2014), the 44th and 45th (2017 to 2021), the 48th (19 October 2022 to 2 February 2023) and the 49th (12 April to 1 September 2023).

He was speaker of the 48th National Assembly from 21 October 2022 to 2 February 2023. He entered the 49th as a GERB-SDS MP. On 9 August 2023, he quit as chair of the culture and media committee and gave up his seat. He also left GERB and politics. Parliament voted to accept his resignation on 1 September 2023.

From 1999 to 2003 he was a councillor on Sofia City Council, and from 2021 to 2023 he sat on the GERB executive committee.

He was born in Dimitrovgrad on 14 December 1951. His mother, the folk singer Kadriye Latifova, known as the "Nightingale of the Rhodopes", died in 1962, when he was 11. He then lived and studied in an orphanage in the village of Studen Kladenets, in Haskovo region.

He graduated from the Iliya Petrov School of Fine Arts in Sofia in 1970. In 1978 he earned a degree in sculpture from the Academy of Arts, where he studied under Prof. Dimitar Daskalov. He won a contest for a creative residency at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris and moved to France in 1985. He taught at the Academy of Arts for 10 years.

From 1978 he took part in every national exhibition and in representative shows abroad. His work appeared in more than 50 exhibitions in Bulgaria, Russia, Poland, Hungary, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, Kuwait, Japan, India and other countries. It hangs in almost every gallery in Bulgaria, and in museums and collections in Moscow, Cologne, Yerevan, Tokyo, Paris, Ankara, Jerusalem, Florence, Venice, Beijing and elsewhere.

At a meeting with Louvre director Henri Loyrette on 23 September 2011, it was announced that Bulgaria would present an exhibition in the museum's new Byzantine department. In April 2015, while Rashidov was minister, the Ministry of Culture staged the exhibition "The Epic of the Thracian Kings" at the Paris museum, with more than 1,600 items from 17 Bulgarian museums.

Rashidov designed the statuettes for several awards: the "Sirak Skitnik" prize of Bulgarian National Radio, the "Golden Rose" of the Bulgarian film festival in Varna, the Interior Ministry's "Police Officer of the Year" and the "Pythagoras" science award of the Ministry of Education and Science.

As minister, he organised Armenia Days in Bulgaria. Together with the painter Georgi Trifonov, he gave the proceeds from an exhibition in India and Paris to the victims of the Spitak earthquake. On 1 October 2021 he opened the Vezhdi art gallery in Sofia.

He held the Order of Stara Planina, first class, from 13 May 2002, and was a corresponding member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences from 2004. His honours include the Vatican's Gold Medal "Dante Alighieri" (1981), first prize at the Gabrovo biennial of humour and satire (1983) and a silver medal at the Gdańsk portrait triennial (1987). He was a People's Artist of Turkey and an honorary citizen of Armenia.

He was also an honorary citizen of Kardzhali (from 21 October 1996), Madan and Dimitrovgrad (from 11 August 2003), Pravets (from 3 October 2008) and Sofia (from 24 July 2014).