Bulgarian Literature for Children and Adolescents - National and Universal Values

Research team: Assoc. Prof Alexandra Antonova, Senior Asst. Prof. Emiliya Alexieva, Assoc. Prof. Lyudmila Malinova, Assoc. Prof. Plamen Antov; Prof. Petar Stefanov (VTU), Assoc. Prof. Mladen Enchev (ShU), Assoc. Prof. Tanya Kazandzhieva (SU), Assoc. Prof. Maya Gorcheva (Uni LSIT), Assoc. Prof. Ognyana Georgieva (NBU)

The aim of the project is to fill in the blanks in the knowledge on the national and universal values ​​of the literature for children and adolescents. Literature for children and adolescents is seen as a specific but inseparable part of the national literary process. The division of "high" literature and children's literature is inappropriate and presupposed. It is also symptomatic that children's literature is absent from national literary histories to this day. It should not be unjustifiably neglected from contemporary literary-historical and critical research. Literature for children and adolescents is neither infantile nor marginal; it is fundamental because it shapes the child and the adolescent. Children's books are the most important books in a person's life. The project is developing in the following innovative directions: literary studies of the Bulgarian periodicals for children, philosophical, psychological and psychoanalytic bases of children's literature; religious, ideological and ethnic themes in this literature. The development of new topics such as emigrant literature and literature of the Bulgarian communities abroad will be a priority in the project. Issues such as the reception of children's literature, creativity and spontaneity in childhood and the teaching of this literature are developed in conjunction with related programs and projects at the Ministry of Education and Science. The project also has its place in the themes of the teen novel, fantasy literature and children's comics. Particular importance is attached to the creation of reference publications, such as "Dictionary of Bulgarian writers for children and adolescents", thematic bibliographies and anthologies.