Romanian-Bulgarian and Bulgarian-Romanian Literary Contacts in the Late Middle Ages

Research Team: Prof. Anisava Miltenova, Assoc. Prof. Nina Georgieva-Gagova, Assoc. Prof. Radoslava Stankova, Senior Asst. Prof. Irina Kuzidova-Karadzhinova, Senior Asst. Prof. Dilyana Radoslavova


After the fall of Bulgaria under Ottoman rule at the end of the 14th century, Bulgarian writers transferred the traditions of the Tarnovo Literary School to Wallachia and Moldova, where they were preserved and developed. That is why the Romanian Slavonic manuscripts, preserved in the libraries and monasteries of Romania, are a rich ground for the study of old Bulgarian literature. The systematic analysis of these materials could lead to the discovery of new, hitherto unknown to the scholarship Old Bulgarian texts and give important information about the mutual influences between the two neighboring cultures in the Late Middle Ages.

The project aimed to study the manuscript tradition in the Late Middle Ages in Bulgaria and Romania, providing an opportunity for Bulgarian scholars to work in the manuscript collections of Bucharest, Brasov, Braila, Iasi and in the monasteries of Putna and Dragomirna, as well as Romanian specialists to work in Bulgarian archives, libraries (Sofia, Plovdiv, etc.) and monasteries (Rila Monastery). The project proved to be beneficial both for the Bulgarian specialists who found unknown transcripts of medieval Slavic works preserved in Romania (biographies of Bulgarian saints, historiographical works and chronicles, florilegiums, etc.) and for the Romanian colleagues who found materials for Romanian literature and culture in Bulgarian repositories. The results of the archeographic research have been published in Bulgarian and Romanian books and periodicals.


Joint project with the G. Călinescu Institute of Literary History and Theory of the Romanian Academy.