E. Bakalova, M. Dimitrova et al., eds. Medieval Bulgarian Art and Letters in a Byzantine Context. The American Research Center in Sofia, 2017.

From The American Research Center in Sofia

This is the second of a two-volume set of recent Bulgarian articles on medieval studies proposed in 2010 by the American Research Center in Sofia Foundation. The purpose of these two volumes is to present select studies by Bulgarian medievalists to the English-reading international scholarly community. While the first volume, entitled State and Church: Studies in Medieval Bulgaria and Byzantium (2012), focused on medieval history and historiography, this collection represents studies in the literature, religious philosophy and arts of medieval Bulgaria and the Balkans.

This volume contains 24 papers on the history of art and letters in medieval Bulgaria that focus mainly on the Bulgarian-Byzantine cultural dialogue. These papers were written by Bulgarian scholars during the period of 1991—2012, and most of them were previously published in Bulgarian periodicals. A few of the papers were written specifically for this volume, and all of the material originally written in Bulgarian was translated into English especially for this publication. The book is divided into three topical sections, and each section begins with an overview of the contribution of Bulgarian scholarship to the study of medieval Bulgarian and Byzantine cultural ties in that particular subject. The first section contains nine papers on art and architecture. Section two includes four papers on Byzantine philosophy and theology. The third section is dedicated to medieval Bulgarian and Byzantine Greek manuscripts and texts. The volume ends with an annotated bibliography of selected publications in Bulgarian concerning medieval Bulgarian and Byzantine art, culture, and literature.