Achim Rabus (Freiburg)
Anatolij Turilov (Moscow)
Antoaneta Granberg (Gothenburg)
David Birnbaum (Pittsburgh, PA)
Dmitriy Bulanin (Sankt Petersburg)
Jürgen Fuchsbauer (Insbruck)
Karine Åkerman Sarkisian (Uppsala)
Lara Sels (Leuven)
M.A. Johnson (Columbus, Ohio)
Margaret Dimitrova (Sofia)
Per Ambrosiani (Umeå)
Petko Petkov (Sofia)
Predrag Matejic (Columbus, Ohio)
Ralph Cleminson (Oxford)
Roland Marti (Saarbrücken)
Rostislav Stankov (Sofia)
Săbka Bogdanova (Sofia)
Sebastian Kempgen (Bamberg)
Svetlina Nikolova (Sofia)
Tsenka Doseva (Sofia)
Tsvetanka Raleva (Sofia)
Veselin Panayotov (Shumen)
Veselka Željazkova (Sofia)
Yavor Miltenov (Sofia)

The 15th century Latin manuscript containing a treatise by Parkosz was the very first proposal of Polish spelling. To account for all the phonemes of Polish some new letters were proposed, which are not available in the present day fonts. This makes difficult to quote the proposal when discussing the history of Polish spelling. The paper describes the transliteration proposed by the author which used the characters available in the Unicode standard. The ultimate solution is of course creating a specialized font and the paper mentions some aspects of this task.

The article provides a thorough review of the presented authors and reports during the scientific conference “Book and Script. Tradition and Modernity”. The scientific conference held on the 8th and 9th of April, 2022, is the first attempt of its kind for an interdisciplinary approach to examine the development of books and scripts from a historical and theoretical aspect. Twenty four papers were presented during the conference from the following institutions: Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, National Academy of Arts, Plovdiv University “Paisii Hilendarski”, Southwestern University “Neofit Rilski”, UniBit (University of Library Science and Information Technology), New Bulgarian University, Institute of Bulgarian Language at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, National Library “St. Cyril and Methodius”, Regional Library “P. Pavlovich” (Silistra), University of Zurich, Typeflow (Rijeka). The main topics during the conference were the script origin among Bulgarians; the early Slavic printed books; scripts and manuscripts; the Revival book and its characteristics; books and fonts in modern times; libraries, books and modern approaches in describing them. There was a general consensus that the interdisciplinary approach opens up new fields and horizons for research in the field of books and scripts.

This essay focusses on Evagrius Ponticus’ Kephalaia Gnostika and its reception. It will offer some results of novel research into the literary structure of this work, including the issue of its so-called ‘silent chapters,’ as well as into its rhetorical strategies and philosophical theology, in particular its anthropology and conception of bodies, Christology, with a proposal for a new reading of one of the Kephalaia Gnostika, and eschatology, especially Evagrius’ doctrine of apokatastasis. Evagrius inherited the last theory from Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, and integrated it in its own further. The influence of Gregory of Nyssa on Evagrius is an aspect of recent research that has been offered as a contribution to scholarship and should now be taken into account. Finally, a brief look will be given at the literary, and partially theological, legacy of the Kephalaia Gnostika.

The article explores the development of the genre kephalaia in the history of medieval Bulgarian literature, especially the changes of its context in the miscellanies in the 10th c. and later in the 13th–14th c. Paraenetic works by many patristic authors, usually presented as short wise sayings in groups of 100 (centuriae), were translated, excerpted, revised, and translated again – a century-long tradition preserved in many Slavic manuscripts. The survey is focused on two works in this genre – Capita de oratione (CPG 2452) by Evagrius of Pontus and Centuriae iv de caritate et continentia (CPG 7848) by Thalassius of Libya. They were first introduced into the Slavic literatures in the early 10th c., and with the development of monasticism and the rise of Hesychasm, their renewed and revised translations were included in the monastic miscellanies from the 14th c. onwards. The linguistic comparison of the versions of the two texts reveals the connections and the differences between them. The analysis of their respective contexts in several manuscripts shows the continuity between the literary traditions of the early and the later period of Slavic literatures.

The article is dedicated to a rare text of Acta Thomae, which has so far been found only in a copy in a manuscript of the 16th century. A review of textological features is made and the text is compared with several Slavic and Greek copies. Such a version is not found among the transcripts of the Acts of the Apostle Thomas known to us and is a separate branch of tradition that emerged after the translation of the Actа Thomaе and Acta Thomae Minora. It is believed that the text in Slavic tradition appeared in the 14th century, probably in Bulgaria, but underwent significant revision before being included in Izmaragd. The research includes a publication of the text.

The article discusses the uncommon definite forms (with pronominal declension) of the possessive adjectives formed with -ов-, -ь and -ии/-ьи in the Old Bulgarian translation of Athanasius of Alexandriaʼs Orations Against the Arians, carried out by Konstantin of Preslav in 906. The translation survives only in Russian manuscripts ranging from the 15th to the 18th centuries. The Russian origin of the manuscripts raises the following question: have the definite forms of the possessive adjectives discussed here been the result of the spreading of the manuscripts in a Russian environment? Although rare, definite forms of possessive adjectives ending in -ов-, -ь and -ии/-ьи have been found in Old Bulgarian and Middle Bulgarian texts. This means that although uncommon, these forms were part of the Old Bulgarian language and the bishop Konstantin of Preslav could have used this declension model. The author argues that the uncommon definite forms of the possessive adjectives божии, отьчь, дѹховъ, съпасовъ, хрьстовъ are part of the translation strategy of bishop Konstantin of Preslav to distinguish between God the Father, God the Son, the Holy Spirit, and Christ the Saviour, on the one hand, and created beings, on the other hand.

The author presents the usage of some of the major Bible quotations in the Slavonic version of De Christo et Antichristo by Hippolytus of Rome. Mainly Old Testament quotations are examined, as well as the longer ones from Revelation. Among them, there are quotes from Genesis, the Book of Isaiah and the Book of Daniel which are compared to the same places in Prophetologium (Grigorovič No. 2 / М.1685, RGB), in the so-called Catena in Prophetas (Saint-Trinity Lavra No. 89, RGB) and where possible with the commentaries of Hippolytus In Danielem, and other early Slavic translations of the Scripture as well. The quotations from Revelation are compared with some later translations of this book in order to underline their importance and usage. The lexical analysis is not the main focus of the conducted study, but it is inevitable when the quotations are compared with biblical manuscripts. Тhe main aim and scope of the article is to highlight how the biblical quotations were approached by the translator. The large-scale comparisons made show how the medieval Slavonic biblical versions vary, depending on the function of the texts translated.

The paper discusses the use of topoi, prototypes and proto-characters to present the protagonists in the oldest surviving Old Bulgarian lives and deeds of saints (The Life and Works of Saint Cyril the Philosopher, The Life and Works of Saint Methodius, and the Anonymous Life of Saint John of Rila). The function of a prototype/ proto-character is to reveal the saint’s resemblance to the former concerning symptomatic characteristics, actions, and situations, for example, by analogy to a familiar authority (biblical, patristic, hagiographic or other). The lives recall the ascetic exploits of the prototype and simultaneously laud the new saint. The meanings of the topoi and prototypes extend beyond the particulars of the text and become a significant element in the creation of shared Christian memory. The topoi and prototypes in hagiographic texts portrayed ideal examples to be followed, passing them on in time and turning them into traditions.

The paper includes the edition of the recently discovered second witness of the Letter of Patriarch Callistus to the Bulgarian spiritual leader Theodosius of Tǎrnovo and his associate Romanus (RGB, f. 98, Egorov N 274). The edition is accompanied by variant readings taken from Syrku’s edition of the text found in RNB, F I 211, which has been the only known witness of the document for more than a century. Both witnesses have a western Russian provenance and date to the second half of the 15th c. (the new one has recently been dated to the last quarter of the 15th c.). The witnesses were compared in terms of orthography, grammar and lexis in order to establish their connection to a supposed Bulgarian original. The detailed philological analysis allows us to conclude that though both witnesses show significant traces of the Second Slavic influence on Russian literature, the two scribes introduced the innovations in different ways and to a different extent. Taking all this into account we dare to suppose that both witnesses descend rather from an earlier copy-mediator with Russian spelling features than directly from a Middle Bulgarian original.

The article compares the text of the „Vidin“ service for St. Petka Tărnovska (Paraskevi of Epivates), featuring a canon for the eighth mode, and the text of the Saint’s service known by three Russian copies in 16th–17th-c. manuscripts from the Trinity–Sergius Lavra. The main peculiarities of the 15 known South Slavonic transcripts of the „Vidin“ service (14th–17th cc.) are analyzied and there are underlined the main stages in the development of the text. It is concluded that the Russian copies are closest in composition and structure to the earliest Bulgarian copy in the 14th-c. manuscript Sinai 25, with added stichera and glories, known from Serbian copies from the 15th–16th cc., and a new kondakion. The Russian copies show that the „Vidin“ service was early included in Russian liturgical practice. It can be assumed that it was done by Gregory Tsamblak who introdusted the cult of Petka Tărnovska to the Orthodox Christian population in the northeastern Slavic lands. The Russian edition of the service for the Venerable Paraskevi-Petka from Epivates, preserved in a 1645 printed menaion, again from the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, contains in addition to the canon for the eighth mode a different canon for the sixth mode (instead of the canon for the sixth mode known by the Menaion of Dragan). The new six-mode composition was created in the 17th c. by adding, reworking and adapting other texts, as shown by its distinction from the 16th-17th-c. Cyrillic copies originating from the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The study examines the cult of the unmercenary Saint Tryphon. Attention is paid to his folklore veneration in Bulgaria and the specifics of his iconographic depiction. The emphasis is on the examination of his image, presented in the Martyrdom as attested in two Slavonic manuscripts from the 15th century housed in the Library of the Romanian Academy, Nos. 306 and 152. The characteristics of both manuscripts are also presented, as both texts are related to the Serbian language environment. The comparison of the two texts shows a complete coincidence in the narrative. The plotline of the narrative has classic features for this genre: introduction, main part, and a short conclusion. The main part of the narrativе stands out two semantic cores: the first is the expulsion of demons from the daughter of Emperor Gordian by Tryphon and the second is the verbal opposition between Aquilinus and the saint and the physical torture he is subjected to after each verbal struggle with his antagonist proving the strength of his spirit and the strength of the Christian faith.

The last decade has brought an upswing in research on natural language processing. However, it is well known that historical language stages are largely underrepresented. Middle Bulgarian Church Slavonic, a language variety with a significant literary productivity, is a prime example. In the current paper, it is shown how annotated texts of related language varieties can be used to annotate texts written in Middle Bulgarian Church Slavonic, such as the 14th-century translation of the Dioptra. In particular, I present a way of adapting the available training data and of reducing the differences between training and test data, thereby improving the result of the automatic morphological annotation. Moreover, it is demonstrated that a comparison with the original work, written in Byzantine Greek, can further increase the results of the annotation by carefully disambiguating homonymous word forms. The presented results can benefit research on Middle Bulgarian Church Slavonic as it shows how texts in this variety can be annotated without authentic training data. The proposed method may be of use not only for Slavonic Studies, however. The method of using training data from genetically related language varieties in combination with translations may be used to annotate other underrepresented language varieties as well.

This year we are celebrating the 80th birthday of Prof. William Veder, a well- known Dutch Slavist and scholar of Bulgarian studies, a specialist in textology and palaeo-Slavic studies and an author of more than 200 publications. Prof. Veder was born in Amsterdam and after the completion of his secondary education in Berkeley, USA (1960) and Berlin (1961), he graduated with a degree in Slavic philology from Utrecht University (1971). Since early on, he showed a particular interest in Bulgarian literature (Meesters der Bulgaarse vertelkunst. Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1971).

Prof. Svetlina Nikolova was born on January 1, 1942 in Vratsa. She graduated in Bulgarian philology from Sofia University (1964), where she won a competition for post-graduate studies in Old Bulgarian literature (1965–1967) and defended her dissertation on the subject of „Патеричните разкази в старата българска литература“ [Paterik Stories in Old Bulgarian Literature] and began her career at the Cyrillo-Methodian Commission (transformed into the Cyrillo-Methodian Research Centre at the Presidium of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in 1980). She was appointed director of the Centre in 1994.

Prof. Predrag Matejić, an emblematic figure in palaeoslavic studies globally, will turn 70 on August 2 this year. His name is connected with the remarkable institutions of the Resource Center for Medieval Slavic Studies and the Hilandar Research Library at Ohio State University in Columbus, USA, which he helped to be established and to be maintained for decades.

Prof. Tatyana Slavova has just turned 65 this year. She was born on February 9, 1957 in Dimitrovrad and completed secondary school in Burgas in 1975. That same year, she enrolled in the Faculty of Slavic Philology at the St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia graduating with a master’s degree in Bulgarian philology in 1979. In 1980 she specialized in Old Bulgarian Glagolitic and Cyrillic palaeography and epigraphy supervised by Prof. Ivan Dobrev (then still associate professor). This research resulted in her doctoral thesis which she defended in 1985 on the subject of „Преславска редакция на старобългарския евангелски превод“ [“The Preslav Redaction of Old Bulgarian Translation of the Gospels”]. In 2001 she was awarded the academic degree of doctor of sciences (DSC) for her dissertation on the „Тълковната палея в контекста на старобългарската книжнина“ [“The Palaea Interpretata in the Context of Old Bulgarian Literature”].

On January 17, 2022 Keiko Mitani, а prominent representative of Japan Palaeoslavistics, who contributed greatly to the development of the contemporary history of the Old Church Slavonic, Russian, Croatian and Old Bulgarian passed away. Keiko Mitani was born in 1957 in Tokyo. She received a bachelor’s degree in Russian Language and Russian Literature, from the Faculty of Letters, the University of Tokyo (1981) and an MA degree in the same subject from the Graduate School of Humanities, University of Tokyo (March 1983). Keiko Mitani continued her research work during her doctoral studies at the Graduate School of Humanities (April 1983 – March 1989). At that time she was able to study Croatian and Slavic literatures in the Balkan context at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb (October 1986 – September 1988) under the supervision of Professor Stjepan Damjanović (of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts). In 1990 she got the position of Research Associate at the University of Tokyo, Faculty of Letters (Russian Language and Literature), and later – Lecturer at the Department of Literature and Linguistics, University of Tsukuba (1993) where she was Assistant Professor (1997). Developing active research and teaching activities she became an Associate Professor at Kyoto University, Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies (1999), and Professor (2005). In 2013 she was a Professor at the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology (Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures). Her rese