Cyrillo-Methodian Research Center

Scientific Projects

Theme: "Critical edition of the Cyrillo-Methodian Sources
Project adviser: Associate Prof. Svetlina Nikolova, PhD

The goal of the project is to start concrete preparations for the full critical edition, the first in mediaeval studies, of the Cyrillo-Methodian sources (Slavonic, Greek, Latin and Romanic-German). The result will be the establishment of a critical text of the Cyrillo-Methodian sources to be used by specialists in various scientific fields (linguistics, literary historians, theologians, art critics, archeologists and others) as a reliable foundation that science has so far lacked in solving the whole range of complicated Cyrillo-Methodian problems.

Old Bulgarian Hymnographic Works of the Cyrillo-Methodian Disciples
- Project adviser: Associate Prof. Georgi Popov, PhD
  
  The project is aimed at publishing the texts of a cycle of newly discovered Old Bulgarian chants for Christmas and Epiphany, preserved and available to us in Slavonic manuscripts of the 12th-15th cc. A characteristic feature of the works is the presence in them of acrostics in a variety of forms and contents. thanks to them can be read out the names of two of the authors who had participated in composing the cycles of chants. They were Cyrillo-Methodian disciples St Clement of Ohrid and Constantine of Preslav. The importance of the newly discovered Old Bulgarian chants is extremely great for science. They reveal new, hitherto unknown aspects of the activity of the Cyrillo-Methodian disciples in Bulgaria, outline basic stages in the development of the Old Bulgarian literature of the Golden Century and assist in elucidating numerous questions connected with the language and letters of the first liturgical books created in Bulgaria.The project is aimed at publishing the texts of a cycle of newly discovered Old Bulgarian chants for Christmas and Epiphany, preserved and available to us in Slavonic manuscripts of the 12th-15th cc. A characteristic feature of the works is the presence in them of acrostics in a variety of forms and contents. thanks to them can be read out the names of two of the authors who had participated in composing the cycles of chants. They were Cyrillo-Methodian disciples St Clement of Ohrid and Constantine of Preslav. The importance of the newly discovered Old Bulgarian chants is extremely great for science. They reveal new, hitherto unknown aspects of the activity of the Cyrillo-Methodian disciples in Bulgaria, outline basic stages in the development of the Old Bulgarian literature of the Golden Century and assist in elucidating numerous questions connected with the language and letters of the first liturgical books created in Bulgaria.

Theme: "Composition of the Early Slavonic Gospel Calendars (11th-14th cc)"

Project adviser: Associate Prof. Ekaterina Dogramadjieva

The two Christian calendars - the Synaxarion (of the movable holidays) and the Menaion (of the fixed holidays) during the first stage of their development (11th-14th cc) - are the subject of the research. The aim is to make a systematic study of the calendar days and the readings designed for them. As a result will be defined the specific features in the building up of the calendars, their mutural links and the tendencies in their development. The result of the study will be of interest for a broad circle of Palaeoslavistics and Medievalists since the calendars rested at the basis of divine service and of a considerable part of medieval literature.

Theme: "Computer Linguistics, Philological Studies and Classical Philology" - jointly with the Computer Linguistics Institute in Pisa (1995-1997)

Project adviser: Associate Prof. Svetlina Nikolova PhD, Prof. Dr. Andrea Bozzi.

The joint project includes the elaboration of two basic tasks: 1. Sources of the History and Culture of Southeastern Europe and Programme Products for their Computer Processing. 2. Improvement of the System of Electroning Processing of Medieval Texts. The work is of great importance for the concrete priority tasks of the Cyrillo-Methodian Research Centre. For the realization of the goals of the project has been selected the Programme DBT (Data Base Textuale), created in Pisa by Dr. E. Picchi which is a system for text processing and full text search. Its Slavonic version has been improved so that the texts of the Prophetic Books in the Old Bulgarian translation of the Old Testament and the Slavonic. Latin and Romano-German Cyrillo-Methodian sources may be studied with a view to preparing the critical apparatus to the full scientific edition of these sources. The results are essential also for the modernization of the work of the Bulgarian philologists in preparing publications of medieval texts. They are valuable also with respect to European medieval studies where the methods of electronic processing of the Cyrillo-Methodian sources are not applied yet.

Theme: "Lists of the Cyrillo-Methodian texts in Manuscript Russian and Bulgarian Collections" - jointly with the “V.V.Vinogradov” Institute of Russian Language at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow (1996-1998)

Project advisers: Associate Prof. Svetlina Nikolova, PhD, leading Associate Prof. Alexander Moldovan, PhD.

The goal of the project is to find any study the copies of the Cyrillo-Methodian texts in the book depositories in Moscow and Sofia. In Moscow are the biggest collections of Slavonic and Greek medieval manuscripts in Russia (over 100,000 manuscripts from the 7th-8th to the 18th c.). Many of the contain unknown and unresearched so far Cyrillo-Methodian texts (works of Slavonic Enlighteners Cyril and Methodius and of their disciples and followers Clement of Ohrid, Ioan Exarch, Constanine of Preslav, the Monk Hrabur and others) which will be consistently traced and researched by the team working on the project. In Sofia also are kept the biggest collections of Slavonic manuscripts in Bulgaria. They also contain important unresearched Cyrillo-Methodian texts that will be studied by team of authors. As a result will be found and researched important hitherto unknown Cyrillo-Methodian texts.

Theme: "Virtual Library and Information Instruments for Old Bulgarian Studies and Their Sources" - jointly with the Institute for Computer Linguistics in Pisa (Italy)

Project advisers: Dr. Eugenio Picchi and Dr. Svetlina Nikolova

After the successful results obtained in the joint work of the scholars of the CRMC and the Institute for Computer Linguistics in Pisa on the first project and after adapting the basic programme (Query System) of the system for text analysis and full text query DBT, the activity was directed to the development of other components of this system. The aim is to use scheme and model on the basis of which are organized the texts of Latin and other Western Languages and to apply them in studying the problems of Old Bulgarian. taking into consideration the specificity of the Old Bulgarian and Byzantine sources. For this reason use is made of the programme “Lexicographic Working Place” of DBT which is designed for the creation, compiling and printing of various types of structured archives (dictionaries, thesauri, concordances and bibliographes), more particularly of the texts of the Prophetic Book of the Old Testament by manuscript F.I.461 of the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg. As a result of the fulfillment of this project, on the one hand will be developed and improved DBT system for work with Slavonic and Latin texts, and on the other, will be accelerated the research work of Slavistics in the sphere of medieval studies and will be facilitated the exchange of information with scientific circles which have not the original texts at their disposal.

Theme: "Cultural Links between Northeastern and Southeastern Europe during the Middle Ages: Cyrillic Monuments, South-Slavonic in Origin, in the Grand Lithuanian Principality"

Project adviser: Associate Prof. Svetlina Nikolova, PhD. and Associate Prof. Sergei Temchinas, PhD.

The project aims at bringing into relief for the scientific community of mediaevalists in the world the pieces of evidence, which have so far remained unknown, of the intensive ties between the Grand Lithuanian Principality and the Southern Slavs during the Middle Ages. Its realization
envisages the all-round investigation of the functioning of the Cyrillic monuments of South-Slavonic origin in the exact number of the copies of the works of Bulgarian and Serbian mediaeval literature, preserved in Cyrillic manuscripts, which are kept in the Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences (Vilnius).The manuscripts containing these copies will be subjected to paleographic, codicological, textological, linguistic, literary-historical and cultural- historical investigation. In the process of work will be formed a collection of microfilms of all the researched manuscripts which contain South-Slavonic materials. It will be of great importance for the study of the texts of the South-Slavonic literary works originating from the territory of the Grand Lithuanian Principality also after the completion of the project. The work on the project will put into scientific circulation numerous hitherto unknown materials of Bulgarian mediaeval literature (especially from the "Golden Century" Age - late 9th - early 10th c.) and will considerably enrich the picture of its strong influence outside Bulgaria during the Middle Ages, particulary during the period up to the 16th c.

Theme: "Scholarly Edition of the London (Ivan Alexander’s) Gospel - Bulgarian Manuscripts of the Middle of the 14th c. "- jointly with the Institute of Slavistics at Vienna University.

Project advisers: Prof. Dr. Heinz Miklas, Research Associate Tanya Popova.

The Four Gospels of King Ivan Alexander (the London Gospel) is one of the best known and most valuable Bulgarian manuscripts. Made in 1356 for the King’s personal library, after the fall of Bulgaria under Turkish rule, it shared the hard and often tragic fate of the bulgarian book of that time: the Gospel traveled in Wallachia, Moldavia and Mount Athos, to reach the British Museum in London where it is kept at present. The London Gospel enjoys the scholars’ great attention, but in spite of that so far a full edition of its text has not been made. The aim of this project is to make a scientific publication of the full text of the manuscript, incorporating for the sake of comparison, another Old Bulgarian manuscript of the 14th c., also kept at the British Museum in London. The edition will include a preface, codicological and palaeographic characteristics of the manuscript used, a description of the language and contents of the London Gospel, a study of the liturgical apparatus (Synaxarion and Menaion), different readings and bibliography.

Theme: "Studies on Bulgarian Historical Phonology" - jointly with the State University in New York, Albany (USA).

Project advisers: Senior Research Associate Boryana Velcheva, PhD, Professor Dr. Earnest Scatton.

A comprehesive research into the phonetic changes in the history of the Bulgarian literature is lacking in Slavistics. The aim of the work is by attracting new data and applying precision methods to outline the development of the sound system of the Bulgarian language of the late Proto-Slavonic to the early New Bulgarian period. Studies on Iconography and Symbolics of Medieval Bulgarian Painting Project adviser: Senior Research Associate Lilyana Mavrodinova, Doctor of Arts Since the ground-breaking work of A.Grabar in 1928, for a whole 70 years there has been no detailed research into the iconography of medieval Bulgarian painting. The study aims at offering a new picture of medieval art, making use of the latest discoveries in this field.

Theme: "The Cyrillo-Methodian Motif and the Motif of the Conversion to Christianity of the Bulgarians in Medieval European Historiography"

Project adviser: Assosiate Prof. Slavia Barlieva PhD

The purpose of the project is to carry out a comprehensive research on the Cyrillo-Methodian motif and of the motif of the conversion to Christianity of the Bulgarians from the viewpoint of medieval European historiography. The analytical description of the chronicles containing these motifs, the establishment of the manuscripts tradition and their critical edition will demonstrate the presence of the “Bulgarian” theme in the most important historical works (Byzantine, Latin and Slavonic) in the Middle Ages which are the basis of modern European historical thought. A combined approach, incorporating archaeographic, palaeographic, textological, linguistic, literary-historical, theological and art study methods are applied.

Theme: "Bulgarian-Ukrainian Literary Links" - jointly with the “V. V. Vernadski” Central Scientific Library - Kiev.

Project advisers: Senior research Associate Sv. Nikolova, PhD. Prof. Dr. Lyubov Dubrovina.

The project envisages the study and publication of copies of the Slavonic Cyrillo-Methodian sources, preserved at the “V. Vernadski” Central Scientific Library at the National Academy of Ukraine, and also of Ukrainian manuscripts at the Cyril and Methodius National Library in Sofia. The study will provide a clear picture of the intensity of the literary contacts among the Orthodox Slavs throughout the Middle Ages, and the learned community will be offered hitherto unknown valuable copies of works of Old Bulgarian writers.

Theme: "The Calendar in the Acts and Epistles and Gospels with Acts and Epistles (10th-14th cc)."

Project adviser Associate Prof. Elena Kotseva PhD.

The second most important liturgical book - the Acts and Epistles - most often contain calendar instructions. Some are inserted with the readings of the Acts and Epistles, according to the cycles of the church calendar, and the others usually constitute a whole section which is inserted as independent part at the end of the manuscript book and comprises either the days of the September year or the most important or selected church holidays in the months. similar are also the calendar references in a special kind of liturgical book - Gospel with the Acts and Epistles. In comparison with the studies made so far, the research is aimed at indicating some peculiarities in the calendar tradition of the Old Bulgarian copies and at explaining their appearance with Byzantine or other models. Special attention is paid to the tropes of the day, the number and numeration of the readings from the Acts and Epistles, the presence or absence of explanatory notes to the festive date. The study envisages an index of the names of the saints and holidays in Old Bulgarian and Greek.


	Scientific Projects Theme: "Critical edition of the Cyrillo-Methodian Sources Project adviser: Associate Prof. Svetlina Nikolova, PhD The goal of the project is to start concrete preparations for the full critical edition, the first in mediaeval studies, of the Cyrillo-Methodian sources (Slavonic, Greek, Latin and Romanic-German). The result will be the establishment of a critical text of the Cyrillo-Methodian sources to be used by specialists in various scientific fields (linguistics, literary historians, theologians, art critics, archeologists and others) as a reliable foundation that science has so far lacked in solving the whole range of complicated Cyrillo-Methodian problems. Old Bulgarian Hymnographic Works of the Cyrillo-Methodian Disciples Project adviser: Associate Prof. Georgi Popov, PhD The project is aimed at publishing the texts of a cycle of newly discovered Old Bulgarian chants for Christmas and Epiphany, preserved and available to us in Slavonic manuscripts of the 12th-15th cc. A characteristic feature of the works is the presence in them of acrostics in a variety of forms and contents. thanks to them can be read out the names of two of the authors who had participated in composing the cycles of chants. They were Cyrillo-Methodian disciples St Clement of Ohrid and Constantine of Preslav. The importance of the newly discovered Old Bulgarian chants is extremely great for science. They reveal new, hitherto unknown aspects of the activity of the Cyrillo-Methodian disciples in Bulgaria, outline basic stages in the development of the Old Bulgarian literature of the Golden Century and assist in elucidating numerous questions connected with the language and letters of the first liturgical books created in Bulgaria.The project is aimed at publishing the texts of a cycle of newly discovered Old Bulgarian chants for Christmas and Epiphany, preserved and available to us in Slavonic manuscripts of the 12th-15th cc. A characteristic feature of the works is the presence in them of acrostics in a variety of forms and contents. thanks to them can be read out the names of two of the authors who had participated in composing the cycles of chants. They were Cyrillo-Methodian disciples St Clement of Ohrid and Constantine of Preslav. The importance of the newly discovered Old Bulgarian chants is extremely great for science. They reveal new, hitherto unknown aspects of the activity of the Cyrillo-Methodian disciples in Bulgaria, outline basic stages in the development of the Old Bulgarian literature of the Golden Century and assist in elucidating numerous questions connected with the language and letters of the first liturgical books created in Bulgaria. Theme: "Composition of the Early Slavonic Gospel Calendars (11th-14th cc)" Project adviser: Associate Prof. Ekaterina Dogramadjieva The two Christian calendars - the Synaxarion (of the movable holidays) and the Menaion (of the fixed holidays) during the first stage of their development (11th-14th cc) - are the subject of the research. The aim is to make a systematic study of the calendar days and the readings designed for them. As a result will be defined the specific features in the building up of the calendars, their mutural links and the tendencies in their development. The result of the study will be of interest for a broad circle of Palaeoslavistics and Medievalists since the calendars rested at the basis of divine service and of a considerable part of medieval literature. Theme: "Computer Linguistics, Philological Studies and Classical Philology" - jointly with the Computer Linguistics Institute in Pisa (1995-1997) Project adviser: Associate Prof. Svetlina Nikolova PhD, Prof. Dr. Andrea Bozzi. The joint project includes the elaboration of two basic tasks: 1. Sources of the History and Culture of Southeastern Europe and Programme Products for their Computer Processing. 2. Improvement of the System of Electroning Processing of Medieval Texts. The work is of great importance for the concrete priority tasks of the Cyrillo-Methodian Research Centre. For the realization of the goals of the project has been selected the Programme DBT (Data Base Textuale), created in Pisa by Dr. E. Picchi which is a system for text processing and full text search. Its Slavonic version has been improved so that the texts of the Prophetic Books in the Old Bulgarian translation of the Old Testament and the Slavonic. Latin and Romano-German Cyrillo-Methodian sources may be studied with a view to preparing the critical apparatus to the full scientific edition of these sources. The results are essential also for the modernization of the work of the Bulgarian philologists in preparing publications of medieval texts. They are valuable also with respect to European medieval studies where the methods of electronic processing of the Cyrillo-Methodian sources are not applied yet. Theme: "Lists of the Cyrillo-Methodian texts in Manuscript Russian and Bulgarian Collections" - jointly with the “V.V.Vinogradov” Institute of Russian Language at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow (1996-1998) Project advisers: Associate Prof. Svetlina Nikolova, PhD, leading Associate Prof. Alexander Moldovan, PhD. The goal of the project is to find any study the copies of the Cyrillo-Methodian texts in the book depositories in Moscow and Sofia. In Moscow are the biggest collections of Slavonic and Greek medieval manuscripts in Russia (over 100,000 manuscripts from the 7th-8th to the 18th c.). Many of the contain unknown and unresearched so far Cyrillo-Methodian texts (works of Slavonic Enlighteners Cyril and Methodius and of their disciples and followers Clement of Ohrid, Ioan Exarch, Constanine of Preslav, the Monk Hrabur and others) which will be consistently traced and researched by the team working on the project. In Sofia also are kept the biggest collections of Slavonic manuscripts in Bulgaria. They also contain important unresearched Cyrillo-Methodian texts that will be studied by team of authors. As a result will be found and researched important hitherto unknown Cyrillo-Methodian texts. Theme: "Virtual Library and Information Instruments for Old Bulgarian Studies and Their Sources" - jointly with the Institute for Computer Linguistics in Pisa (Italy) Project advisers: Dr. Eugenio Picchi and Dr. Svetlina Nikolova After the successful results obtained in the joint work of the scholars of the CRMC and the Institute for Computer Linguistics in Pisa on the first project and after adapting the basic programme (Query System) of the system for text analysis and full text query DBT, the activity was directed to the development of other components of this system. The aim is to use scheme and model on the basis of which are organized the texts of Latin and other Western Languages and to apply them in studying the problems of Old Bulgarian. taking into consideration the specificity of the Old Bulgarian and Byzantine sources. For this reason use is made of the programme “Lexicographic Working Place” of DBT which is designed for the creation, compiling and printing of various types of structured archives (dictionaries, thesauri, concordances and bibliographes), more particularly of the texts of the Prophetic Book of the Old Testament by manuscript F.I.461 of the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg. As a result of the fulfillment of this project, on the one hand will be developed and improved DBT system for work with Slavonic and Latin texts, and on the other, will be accelerated the research work of Slavistics in the sphere of medieval studies and will be facilitated the exchange of information with scientific circles which have not the original texts at their disposal. Theme: "Cultural Links between Northeastern and Southeastern Europe during the Middle Ages: Cyrillic Monuments, South-Slavonic in Origin, in the Grand Lithuanian Principality" Project adviser: Associate Prof. Svetlina Nikolova, PhD. and Associate Prof. Sergei Temchinas, PhD. The project aims at bringing into relief for the scientific community of mediaevalists in the world the pieces of evidence, which have so far remained unknown, of the intensive ties between the Grand Lithuanian Principality and the Southern Slavs during the Middle Ages. Its realization envisages the all-round investigation of the functioning of the Cyrillic monuments of South-Slavonic origin in the exact number of the copies of the works of Bulgarian and Serbian mediaeval literature, preserved in Cyrillic manuscripts, which are kept in the Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences (Vilnius).The manuscripts containing these copies will be subjected to paleographic, codicological, textological, linguistic, literary-historical and cultural- historical investigation. In the process of work will be formed a collection of microfilms of all the researched manuscripts which contain South-Slavonic materials. It will be of great importance for the study of the texts of the South-Slavonic literary works originating from the territory of the Grand Lithuanian Principality also after the completion of the project. The work on the project will put into scientific circulation numerous hitherto unknown materials of Bulgarian mediaeval literature (especially from the "Golden Century" Age - late 9th - early 10th c.) and will considerably enrich the picture of its strong influence outside Bulgaria during the Middle Ages, particulary during the period up to the 16th c. Theme: "Scholarly Edition of the London (Ivan Alexander’s) Gospel - Bulgarian Manuscripts of the Middle of the 14th c. "- jointly with the Institute of Slavistics at Vienna University. Project advisers: Prof. Dr. Heinz Miklas, Research Associate Tanya Popova. The Four Gospels of King Ivan Alexander (the London Gospel) is one of the best known and most valuable Bulgarian manuscripts. Made in 1356 for the King’s personal library, after the fall of Bulgaria under Turkish rule, it shared the hard and often tragic fate of the bulgarian book of that time: the Gospel traveled in Wallachia, Moldavia and Mount Athos, to reach the British Museum in London where it is kept at present. The London Gospel enjoys the scholars’ great attention, but in spite of that so far a full edition of its text has not been made. The aim of this project is to make a scientific publication of the full text of the manuscript, incorporating for the sake of comparison, another Old Bulgarian manuscript of the 14th c., also kept at the British Museum in London. The edition will include a preface, codicological and palaeographic characteristics of the manuscript used, a description of the language and contents of the London Gospel, a study of the liturgical apparatus (Synaxarion and Menaion), different readings and bibliography. Theme: "Studies on Bulgarian Historical Phonology" - jointly with the State University in New York, Albany (USA). Project advisers: Senior Research Associate Boryana Velcheva, PhD, Professor Dr. Earnest Scatton. A comprehesive research into the phonetic changes in the history of the Bulgarian literature is lacking in Slavistics. The aim of the work is by attracting new data and applying precision methods to outline the development of the sound system of the Bulgarian language of the late Proto-Slavonic to the early New Bulgarian period. Studies on Iconography and Symbolics of Medieval Bulgarian Painting Project adviser: Senior Research Associate Lilyana Mavrodinova, Doctor of Arts Since the ground-breaking work of A.Grabar in 1928, for a whole 70 years there has been no detailed research into the iconography of medieval Bulgarian painting. The study aims at offering a new picture of medieval art, making use of the latest discoveries in this field. Theme: "The Cyrillo-Methodian Motif and the Motif of the Conversion to Christianity of the Bulgarians in Medieval European Historiography" Project adviser: Assosiate Prof. Slavia Barlieva PhD The purpose of the project is to carry out a comprehensive research on the Cyrillo-Methodian motif and of the motif of the conversion to Christianity of the Bulgarians from the viewpoint of medieval European historiography. The analytical description of the chronicles containing these motifs, the establishment of the manuscripts tradition and their critical edition will demonstrate the presence of the “Bulgarian” theme in the most important historical works (Byzantine, Latin and Slavonic) in the Middle Ages which are the basis of modern European historical thought. A combined approach, incorporating archaeographic, palaeographic, textological, linguistic, literary-historical, theological and art study methods are applied. Theme: "Bulgarian-Ukrainian Literary Links" - jointly with the “V. V. Vernadski” Central Scientific Library - Kiev. Project advisers: Senior research Associate Sv. Nikolova, PhD. Prof. Dr. Lyubov Dubrovina. The project envisages the study and publication of copies of the Slavonic Cyrillo-Methodian sources, preserved at the “V. Vernadski” Central Scientific Library at the National Academy of Ukraine, and also of Ukrainian manuscripts at the Cyril and Methodius National Library in Sofia. The study will provide a clear picture of the intensity of the literary contacts among the Orthodox Slavs throughout the Middle Ages, and the learned community will be offered hitherto unknown valuable copies of works of Old Bulgarian writers. Theme: "The Calendar in the Acts and Epistles and Gospels with Acts and Epistles (10th-14th cc)." Project adviser Associate Prof. Elena Kotseva PhD. The second most important liturgical book - the Acts and Epistles - most often contain calendar instructions. Some are inserted with the readings of the Acts and Epistles, according to the cycles of the church calendar, and the others usually constitute a whole section which is inserted as independent part at the end of the manuscript book and comprises either the days of the September year or the most important or selected church holidays in the months. similar are also the calendar references in a special kind of liturgical book - Gospel with the Acts and Epistles. In comparison with the studies made so far, the research is aimed at indicating some peculiarities in the calendar tradition of the Old Bulgarian copies and at explaining their appearance with Byzantine or other models. Special attention is paid to the tropes of the day, the number and numeration of the readings from the Acts and Epistles, the presence or absence of explanatory notes to the festive date. The study envisages an index of the names of the saints and holidays in Old Bulgarian and Greek.