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The great work of the Slavic enlighteners Cyril and Methodius plays an extremely important role in the life of our people. This role was especially prominent during the years of our national liberation movement from the middle of the 19th century. In the struggle for the cultural affirmation of the Bulgarian people, for broad national education, it is in the first place. The names and images of Cyril and Methodius are the center of this struggle, they inspire people-friendly activity. Evidence of this is the numerous publications about them that appeared during the Bulgarian Renaissance. All social strata show interest in them, and, of course, each perceives and interprets their immortal work from its own positions. The highest and most truthful assessment, closely related to the current political tasks of the historical moment, was received by Lyuben Karavelov and Hristo Botev - prominent representatives of our national liberation struggles, significantly influenced by the ideas of the Russian revolutionary-democrats. All Bulgarian cultural and political figures of the Renaissance who wrote about Cyril and Methodius had an enthusiastic and positive attitude towards their work. They perceived and affirmed it as the basis of the new Bulgarian culture that was being built. They wrote separate books about them, many articles in newspapers and magazines, translated and published scientific studies by prominent foreigners on Cyril and Methodius issues, delivered hundreds of passionate speeches at the annual celebrations organized on the occasion of the holiday of Slavic enlightenment, published many reports on the celebrations held, etc.

The work of Cyril and Methodius is very diverse, can be viewed from different angles and raises many questions. One of the most interesting is the question of its connection with the development of Bulgarian literature. Some will say that this goes without saying - Cyril and Methodius are organically intertwined in the history of Bulgarian literature, without their work its emergence is unthinkable; everything is clear here, there is nothing to dispute and nothing to add. In fact, the questions are more complex than they seem at first glance. Let us take just two of them. On the one hand - were there not manifestations of Slavic writing in Bulgaria before the time of Cyril and Methodius and in that case can their work be considered the beginning of Bulgarian literature? On the other hand - is not a work included in the history of Bulgarian literature that developed up to the Moravian mission in the sphere of Byzantine culture, and then - among the Western Slavs? Is this not a stage of pan-Slavic literature that had a strong influence on the development of old Bulgarian literature, but did not enter into its history? That these questions have not been fully resolved, and at the very least - there is no agreement on them, is clearly visible when we turn our attention from the literary work of Cyril and Methodius to their language - it still bears different names in science: Old Church Slavonic, Old Church Slavonic, Old Bulgarian.

Tradition has forever linked the names of two prominent representatives of the Bulgarian revival - Paisius and Sophrony of Vrachanski. And not by chance. The Kotla priest Stoyko Vladislavov was the first to transcribe "History of Slavonic Bulgaria", the first to understand and implement as a writer and public figure the national and universal ideas of the Hilendar monk. In 1962, the 200th anniversary of the writing of "History of Slavonic Bulgaria" was celebrated - articles and studies were published in the periodical press and scientific publications that shed light on important moments in the work of the immortal revivalist. Just a few months later, a monograph on the life and creative path of Sophrony of Vrachanski appeared. Its author, the famous specialist in Old Bulgarian literature V. Sl. Kiselkov, has shown interest in Sophrony as a scientist and citizen, because, as he notes in the introduction to his work, he was born and raised "in the birthplace of Sophrony" (p. 4). Therefore, the tracing and interpretation of the facts is often warmed by a warm feeling for his native land, by reverence for its historical past, by a captivating enthusiasm for the work of notable Kotel residents. V. Sl. Kiselkov's aspiration to outline the era and activities of Sophrony as completely as possible, to challenge established concepts and propose new ones, has determined both the composition of the monograph and the volume of its individual parts. It is made up of four mutually complementary chapters: 1. Kotel; 2. From the cradle to the grave; 3. Writer's image; 4. Literary work.

The Soviet scientist K. A. Poglubko continued for several years to research the Bulgarian-Russian revolutionary relations of the 1960s and 1970s. The result of his research are the interesting studies "Iz istorii Russko-Bulgarskikh revolutionarynyh syvyaz kontsa 60-kh ogode XIX c." (News of the Academy of Moldavian SSR, No. 1, 1965), "Some new materials about the connections of Russian revolutionaries with H. Botev in the early 1970s." (Izvestia AN Moldavskoi SSR, No. 2, 1966), "Connections of Bulgarian and Russian emigrants (1869)" (Izvestia AN Moldavskoi SSR, book 1, 1968) and others. The studios are interconnected. They are obviously key moments of a comprehensive monographic work that will shed new light on a remarkable heroic period of our national Revival and on the activities of the greatest figures of the era.