Konstantin Mechev

The ever-increasing differentiation and narrow specialization of the various branches of knowledge is a well-known and widely recognized fact today. Among the literary-philological scientific disciplines - clearly separated from the so-called "textual criticism" and paleography - textology already has its own independent scientific subject. At present - and especially that part of it that studies the monuments of medieval literature - it is not only an "applied discipline", but a foundation on which the precise observations and final results of literary history are built. From this fruitful starting point, all the textological assessments of the famous Soviet literary historian-medievalist D. S. Likhachev were made in his new voluminous book, entitled "Textology" - the first systematic exposition in the USSR of textological problems as a new part of modern philology.

So far, in our scientific literature, the Praise of Metropolitan Cyprian of Kiev and later of All Russia (1376-1406) by his younger contemporary and relative, Grigory Tsamblak of Tarnovo, has not been subjected to a more thorough literary analysis. However, all researchers who have dealt with it to one degree or another note that this work of Tsamblak is one of the very interesting works of our old literature. For example, Bonyu St. Angelov, who recently reprinted the Word, points out that he is doing this because, in his opinion, Tsamblak's glorification of Cyprian possesses "great literary and historical value." Professor Peter Dinekov, making a general assessment of the Word, finds that it - like the rest of Tsamblak's works - is a vivid manifesto of his great literary talent, especially as regards the depiction of mass scenes; One such moment is the welcoming of Cyprian in Tarnovo in 1379. In describing this holiday for the people of Tarnovo, Tsamblak managed to convey the excitement of the crowd (and) to color his story emotionally.

Until recently, in our literary history, the great and very interesting, for his era new writing style, South Slavic and Bulgarian writer Parteny Pavlovich, born around 1695 in the city of Silistra, did not receive the appropriate place for his literary work. He was mentioned episodically in general literary-historical reviews, noting that he was the author of a curious and meaningful autobiography, which, however, remained unknown to the mass reader; the excerpts from it in a New Bulgarian translation, printed by Professor Yordan Ivanov, pursued academic and educational purposes, so their fame hardly went far beyond the walls of the University. This gap was partly filled by an essay by Dr. V. Sl. Kiselkov about Parteny, published as the final chapter in his compiled work "Studies and Outlines of Old Bulgarian Literature", Sofia, 1956, pp. 394-398. The most comprehensive and in-depth exposition of the personality and work of Parthenius has recently been made by Bonyu St. Angelov. In his study, Angelov traces in detail the life path of Parthenius, brings to light and analyzes his larger and smaller works. The great merit of B. St. Angelov is also that, thanks to his publication, today the Bulgarian reader has at hand one of Parthenius' most important works adapted to our current spelling system: his Autobiography, published so far only once in the almost inaccessible Serbian magazine "Serbian Zion".

In the history of Old Bulgarian literature, the Tale of the Zograf Martyrs currently occupies a modest place. It is usually noted as one of the works of our historical literature of the 13th century, written on a historical theme - the massacre in 1275 in the Bulgarian Zograf Monastery of 21 Bulgarian monks and 4 laymen. It is assumed that the appearance of the Tale is directly related to the existing during the Second Bulgarian Kingdom our chronicle tradition, of which the Tale is a small fragment that has come down to us with its specific, dictated by the theme and the time of its emergence, anti-Latin tendency. Both Yordan Ivanov and Petar Dinekov are of the opinion that the Tale was written almost in the wake of the events and insofar as it contains hints about the external dangers threatening the Bulgarian people, they relate to its political and state relations at the end of the 13th century. 2 As can be seen, the Tale was not left without attention by our literary historians. Yet, what has been written about it so far is relatively small, so that the true place of the Tale in the Old Bulgarian literary process can be outlined on its basis. The reason for this state of research is that this medieval historical work of ours is considered anonymous, and the question of its more certain or possible authorship has not been raised.