Personalia

In academic circles, Prof. Dr. Habil. Elka Bakalova, Corresponding Member of Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, is widely known as an art historian and cultural anthropologist, long-time academic lecturer and expert in the field of preservation of cultural monuments. Her 85th birthday, celebrated at the end of 2023, is a good occasion to show her once again the deep respect that her rich scientific and public activity deserves at all times and without special pretext. In today’s Bulgaria, charismatic great academic intellectuals are so rare that we can only be happy and grateful as long as they are among us, because they are bearers of already disappearing moral values and scholarly talents and skills, being the last of the Mohicans of the humanities.

Subject: Personalia

One of the most prominent palaeo-Slavists of our time has left us – Prof. Dr. Heinz Miklas from the University of Vienna, who devoted his entire life to the Glagolitic and Cyrillic writing, to the translation of Old Bulgarian literature, the study of its origin and spread in the Slavic written traditions.

Subject: Personalia

I first knew Yavor and his work when he was studying Bulgarian philology at the St. Clement of Ohrid University of Sofia (1996-2001). He was an alumnus of the National High School of Ancient Languages and Cultures, from which he had graduated with a thesis on The History of Mount Athos by Stefan the Hagiorite and it came naturally to him to specialize further in the field of Old Slavonic letters. His MA thesis Apocalypsis Johannis Apocrypha: Survey, Critical edition and Word Index (published in 20011) was distinguished by the depth of the analysis and by the accomplished methodology mastered by a very talented and a very promising specialist in the history of medieval Slavonic texts. It was to this area – medieval text history – that Yavor Miltenov would return to constantly over the years, creating a legacy.

Subject: Personalia

On August 6, 2024, we lost a notable specialist in the field of Byzantine studies and Paleo-Slavic studies Petya Yaneva, DSc, professor at the Department of Classical Philology at the Faculty of Classical and Modern Philology at the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. For more than 10 years, she was a member of the editorial board of the Scripta & e-Scripta annual and contributed immensely to the high professional level of the publication. She especially supported the participation of young specialists with publications and their growth in the field of translated medieval literature.

Subject: Personalia

Iskra Hristova-Šomova at 65

Subject: Personalia

Keywords: Language and Literature Studies Essay Book Review Scientific Life Philology

In Memoriam Georgi Popov (1943–2023)

Subject: Personalia In Memoriam

Keywords: Language and Literature Studies Essay Book Review Scientific Life Obituary Philology

In Memoriam Elena Tomova (1947–2023)

Subject: Personalia In Memoriam

Keywords: Language and Literature Studies Essay Book Review Scientific Life Obituary Philology

Риккардо Пиккио: гражданин наднациональной Respublica litterarum. К столетию со дня его рождения (Riccardo Picchio: a citizen of the supranational Respublica Litterarum. To the centenary of his birth)

Subject: Personalia

Keywords: Language and Literature Studies Essay Book Review Scientific Life Cultural Essay Obituary Philology

Das 100-jährige Jubiläum von Rudolf Aitzetmüller (The 100th anniversary of Rudolf Aitzetmüller)

Subject: Personalia

Keywords: Language and Literature Studies Essay Book Review Scientific Life Cultural Essay Obituary Philology

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).

Subject: Personalia Anniversary

Keywords: William Veder

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.

Subject: Personalia Anniversary

Keywords: Svetlina Nikolova

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.

Subject: Personalia Anniversary

Keywords: Predrag Matejić

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”].

Subject: Personalia Anniversary

Keywords: Татяна Славова

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

Subject: In Memoriam Personalia

Keywords: Keiko Mitani

Cynthia Vakareliyska is a remarkable scholar who has significantly contributed to the fields of mediaeval Slavonic studies and the history of the Slavic languages. She was born in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. In 1973 she became BA in Russian magna cum laude at Princeton University and in 1976 received the degree of J.D. from the School of Law at Columbia University. For five years (1985–1990) she was a Teaching Fellow at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University, where in 1990 she obtained a Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures. In 1986 she was awarded the Certificate of Distinction in Teaching by the Danforth Institute at Harvard University. Later she worked as Assistant Professor in Russian at Georgetown University (1990–1994) and Assistant Professor in Slavic Linguistics (1994–1997) at the University of Oregon, Eugene, where she became Associate Professor in Slavic Linguistics (1997–1998), Associate Professor of Linguistics (1998–2008) and from 2008 to 2018 she was Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Linguistics at that university, and since 2018 Professor Emerita. She read courses on Old Church Slavonic, historical phonology of the Slavic languages, computer collation of mediaeval Slavic Menologies, the structure of Lithuanian and Russian, neuro- and gender linguistics.

Subject: Personalia Anniversary

Keywords: Cynthia Vakareliyska

Catherine Mary MacRobert, M.A., D.Phil., formerly University Lecturer in Russian Philology and Comparative Slavonic Philology at the University of Oxford, is presently Emeritus Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, and Senior Research Fellow at Somerville College. Her main research interests have been in the history of mediaeval Slavonic translations from Greek and comparative grammar. A great deal of her work is devoted to the textual tradition of the mediaeval Slavonic Psalter. It would be not an exaggeration to say that nowadays she must be esteemed as one of the best experts on the subject.

Subject: Personalia Anniversary

Keywords: Catherine Mary MacRobert

Professor Johannes Reinhart is one of the most outstanding figures in palaeo­ slavistics, the author of more than 100 articles and studies, a man who discovered hitherto unknown Slavonic texts, an untiring researcher into the Slavonic manuscript heritage and a noted etymologist. He was born on March 2, 1951, in Vienna, where he graduated, defended his doctoral thesis and lectured. With his erudition and precision Professor Reinhart, a disciple of the remarkable scholar František Mareš, is a typical representative of the famous Viennese school of Slavonic studies, the foundations of which were laid by the great Vatroslav Jagić.

Subject: Personalia Anniversary

Keywords: Johannes Reinhart

The Russian historian, manuscript specialist and Slavonic mediaevalist Anatoly Turilov has earned a classic reputation in the field of research into mediaeval Slavonic manuscripts and Slavonic literatures. Born in Yaroslavl’ in 1951, Turilov graduated from the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, specialising in the study of primary sources (1973). He was a doctoral student at the Institute of Slavonic and Balkan Studies (1973–1976). Turilov worked as a senior librarian at the Manuscript Department of the Lenin Library (now the Russian State Library) in Moscow (1977–1979). In 1980 he successfully defended his dissertation on the topic of „Болгарские и сербские источники по средневековой истории Балкан в русской книжности конца ХІV– первой четверти ХVІ вв.“ This continued to be a leading topic throughout his academic career. Turilov worked as a research associate and a senior research associate at the Archaeographic Commission of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, today the Russian Academy of Sciences. Turilov currently holds the position of research associate at the Institute of Slavonic Studies.

Subject: Personalia Anniversary

Keywords: Anatolij Turilov

Professor Francis J. Thomson, one of the most remarkable scholars in the field of the Byzantine and Slavonic cultures, passed away on 21 May 2021. A medievalist with an outstanding erudition and intellectual rigor, he shaped the studies of medieval Slavonic written cultures in the last six decades.

Subject: Personalia In Memoriam

Keywords: Francis J. Thomson

On February 13 this year, one of the most brilliant minds in Bulgarian mediaeval literary studies, Prof. Dr. Klimentina Ivanova, turned 80. Her life has been dedicated to research into mediaeval Slavonic manuscripts, which she herselfsays are like a time machine that allows a return to times quite different from the present and a sharing of the experience of the people who created the books. Klimentina Ivanova’s passion and love for manuscripts is quite tangible both in her engaging texts accessible even to young readers not interested in mediaeval studies, such as In the Beginning Was the Book, 1 and in academic and expert editions like the description of manuscripts from the collection of Mikhail Pogodin2 or the volume of the works of Clement of Ohrid.3 Her work as a researcher began in the Institute of Literature at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences where, even as a doctoral student, she did not only study medieval Slavonic manuscripts, but was also involved in describing those of them that had not yet been studied – a difficult task requiring competence in different fields. That was when she met with the noted Russian scholar Dmitry Sergeyevich Likhachov, with whom she discussed her ideas about hesychasm and at whose invitation she went to Russia, where she specialized at the Old Russian Literature Sector at the Institute of Russian Literature in St Petersburg (1968–1969). Although short, the period she spent in Russia was full of new discoveries while she described the manuscripts from the Pogodin collection, the pages of which proved to preserve works by Bulgarian writers such as Clement of Ohrid and Constantine of Preslav.

Subject: Personalia Anniversary

Keywords: Klimentina Ivanova

Personalia

Subject: Literary Texts Personalia Cynthia Vakareliyska Anniversary Publications

Personalia

Subject: Literary Texts Personalia

Georgi Petkov is a Professor, Doctor of Sciences at the University “Paisij Xilendarski”, Plovdiv. He is working in the fields of the medieval Slavonic literature, Slavonic textology, Byzantine-Bulgarian translations, archeography and history of Old Bulgarian manuscripts. He also has remarkable contributions to comparative research of medieval Serbian, Wallachian, Moldavian and Russian literature, as well as documents of the period of Bulgarian and Balkan Revival.

Subject: Literary Texts Personalia