XVII International (Extraordinary) Congress of Slavists (Paris, August 25- 30, 2025)
Margarita Mladenova,
Tsvetanka Avramova
Sofia University
The XVII International (Extraordinary) Congress of Slavists took place in the days between August 25th and 30th 2025 in Paris. We present the reports of the participants from the Faculty of Slavic Studies at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. This issue also includes the reports from a special section, organised thanks to the proposal of Margaret Dimitrova (Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”) and Adelina Angusheva-Tihanov (University of Manchester), dedicated to the reception of knowledge on nature in medieval Slavic texts in translation (Еxégèse et transfert culturel chez les Slaves: connaissance de la nature dans les textes médiévaoux traduits)…
The Second South Slavic Redaction of the Non-Verse (Plain) Prolog
Iskra Hristova-Shomova
Sofia University
https://doi.org/10.53656/bel2026-1s-1
Abstract. The Non-Verse (Plain) Prolog is a Slavic book which contains short texts about saints and feasts for every day of the year. There are two South Slavic redactions of the Non-Verse Prolog. The existence of the second redaction was recently discovered. It is less common than the first and is found only in Serbian manuscripts. But Prolog readings are also included in some Office Menaia. Three Prolog readings are represented in this article according to two manuscripts of the Non-Verse Prolog: the Lesnovo Prolog from 1330 (a representative of the first redaction) and the Zagreb Prolog from the 13th -14th centuries (a representative of the second redaction), as well as according to two Office Menaia: The Draganov Menaion from the end of the 13th century and the Ohrid Menaion from 1435. The comparison shows that there are differences between the first and the second redaction, both at the lexical and syntactic levels, and sometimes entire expressions have been changed. Moreover, in some cases the text in one of the two redactions is significantly longer. The readings in the Draganov Menaion are according to the first redaction for the first half of the year (September-February) and according to the second – for the second half of the year (March-August), while the readings in the Ohrid Menaion always follow the second redaction. Further, there are common errors between the two South Slavic redactions, while Old Russian manuscripts with correct reading are known. This witnesses that the medieval translation of the Non-Verse Prolog was created among the Eastern Slavs and was later brought to the Balkans.
Keywords: Non-Verse Prolog; Office Menaion; medieval Slavic translations; text redactions
Dative Case Expressing Direction in Middle Bulgarian and Old Czech Language: Non-Prepositional versus Prepositional Use
Maya Nikolaeva Radicheva
Sofia University
Faculty of Slavic Studies
https://doi.org/10.53656/bel-2026-1s-2
Abstract. The article[i] is devoted to one of the semantic uses of the dative case – dative expressing direction in Middle Bulgarian and Old Czech – with particular emphasis on its non-prepositional use, regarded as more archaic, which is contrasted with prepositional usage. The study surveys selected interpretations of the meanings of the dative case as proposed in different case theories and classifications. The core of the comparison is based primarily on examples drawn from two fourteenth-century texts – the Tale of Troy and the Chronicle of the so-called Dalimil – supplemented by other relevant examples from historical grammars of the two languages. The main conclusions of the analysis are that (a) the use under consideration is better attested in Middle Bulgarian; and (b) in both languages a shift from non-prepositional to prepositional constructions can be observed, a process identified as one of the most significant developments in the Slavic languages, leading to a substantial reorganization of their syntactic systems.
Keywords: Dativ case; Middle Bulgarian; Old Chech; directional semantics; locative function
Interpreting Living World in Late Medieval Apologetic Texts: Nature and Body in the Slavonic Translation of John VI Kantakouzenos’ Polemic Texts against Islam
Adelina Angusheva-Tihanov
University of Manchester
https://doi.org/10.53656/bel-2026-1s-3
Abstract. Written after his abdication from the Byzantine throne in 1354, the polemical discourses against Islam and in defence of Christianity by John VI Kantakouzenos (d.1382), were soon translated in the fourteenth-century Balkan Slavic milieu. Typically for the apologetic genre, they present an encyclopaedia of Byzantine theological views, in which exegesis plays an essential role as a technique of persuasion and refutation, and communicates Christian understanding of nature, animals and human body. Kantakouzenos does not invent the interpretations, but choses them from the existing pool of Byzantine exegetic tradition. The paper1 explores some of the ways in which these exegetic components were interpreted and presented by the Slavonic translator and later copyists.
Keywords: John VI Kantakouzenos’ polemical discourses against Islam, Slavonic translation of Kantakouzenos’ polemical discourses, exegesis, living world
Alexander and the Fantastic Creatures of the East
Susana Torres Prieto
IE University (Segovia/Madrid), Spain
https://doi.org/10.53656/bel-2026-1s-4
Abstract. The popular text of the Alexander Romance contained many animals and strange creatures that meant a challenge for the translators of the Greek text into Slavonic in any of its two recensions. The techniques employed varied, as much as the illustrations that often accompanied such literary depictions. No other text contained such a variety of fantastic animals except for the Physiologus, with which the Alexander Romance has particularly interesting connections, especially in East Slavic. The present article explores the translations of real and fantastic animals and creatures as well as the literary connections between both works.
Keywords: Slavic Alexander Romance, animals, Physiologus, creatures
Plants in Exegesis: Difficulties in Medieval Slavonic Translations of John Chrysostom and Theodoret of Cyrrhus
Aneta Dimitrova,
Margaret Dimitrova
Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”
https://doi.org/10.53656/bel-2026-1s-5
Abstract. This study1 examines how medieval South Slavonic translators rendered Greek botanical terminology into Old Church Slavonic (Old Bulgarian) and how their choices varied. Early translations from the 9th – 11th centuries tended to be contextual and flexible, while 14th – 15th-century translators preferred greater lexical and grammatical precision, frequently adopting Greek loanwords. Using different translations of the commentaries to the Song of Songs and of John Chrysostom’s De statuis as case studies, the article illustrates how botanical terms were interpreted differently according to the translators’ strategies and skill. Particular attention is given to plant names whose interpretation depended on theological commentaries, especially in late catena translations, where loanwords were introduced, but sometimes explanatory synonyms were added for clarity. These examples highlight the translators’ efforts to render Greek sources faithfully while remaining comprehensible to Slavic readership.
Keywords: hermeneutics, biblical commentaries, plants, translations of the Bible, Old Church Slavonic translations from Greek
Book of nature in Croatian Glagolitic sermones de sanctis
Andrea Radošević
Old Church Slavonic Insitute – Zagreb (Croatia)
https://doi.org/10.53656/bel-2026-1s-6
Abstract. One of the most important sources for researching the Book of Nature in the Croatian Glagolitic medieval literature are sermon collections. The chapters based on the Book of Nature are found in the de sanctis cycle of the four Glagolitic manuscripts from the 16th century (Disipul A, Disipul B, Disipul C, Disipul D). All the chapters were translated from the Latin sermon collection known as Hortulus reginae, which was written in the 15th century by German priest Magister Petrus Meffordis from Leipzig. His interpretation of the saint’s biography is partly based on the development of analogies between selected parts of the respective hagiography and details from the Book of Nature inserted from various sources. The aim of the paper is to analyse his specific approach to linking the hagiographical and the natural, and also to examine the sources of the knowledge of nature transmitted in Glagolitic literature through the translation of texts from Hortulus reginae.
Keywords: Croatian Glagolitic sermons, Meffreth, Book of Nature, hagiography
Structure of the Semantic Field of Existence in Bulgarian, Czech and Russian
Margarita Mladenova
Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” – Sofia (Bulgaria)
https://doi.org/10.53656/bel-2026-1s-7
Abstract. The paper discusses the lexical semantics of predicates in the semantic field of existence and its structure in three Slavic languages – Bulgarian, Czech and Russian. The transformations in this field in Bulgarian are emphasized. 179 verbs at least are identified as a part of the field. Component analysis is the main method for the study of their internal relations. The structure of this relations is presented as consisting of an absolute nucleus, two extensions of the nucleus, a proper part and a periphery of the semantic field. The microfield of animacy is situated as a part of all the sections of the semantic field of existence. The analysis lead to the conclusion that the nucleus of the semantic field is a verb with a simple structure containing only one seme in its sememe. In the three Slavic languages the structure of the semantic field is similar, but the concrete verbs in every part of the field may be different.
Keywords: existence; semantic fields of the predicate lexicon; Bulgarian; Czech; Russian; Old Bulgarian
On The Limits of Word-Formation
Tsvetanka Avramova
Sofia University
Faculty of Slavic Studies – Sofia (Bulgaria)
https://doi.org/10.53656/bel-2026-1s-8
Abstract. The paper is dedicated to a fundamental issue in derivatology – the issue of productivity (understood as the derivability of one word from another at a formal level) and motivation (understood as the semantic conditioning of a given word by another) of derived/motivated words. Based on generally accepted definitions of the concepts of derivation and motivation at a synchronous level, some controversial issues related to the so-called “mutual motivation”, “splitting of formal and semantic motivation”, and the boundaries between derivation and adaptation are considered. The determination of the exact inventory of units of the word-formation system – derived/motivated words – and its boundaries depends on the resolution of these issues.
Keywords: derivation; motivation; adaptation; derivatology; synchronous word-formation
Women’s Writing in Contemporary South Slavic Poetry
Elena Daradanova
Sofia University
Faculty of Slavic Studies
https://doi.org/10.53656/bel-2026-1s-9
Abstract. The study1 focuses on women’s poetic work in the South Slavic literatures during the first decades of the 21st century. Its object of observation and comparison is the female lyrical discourse in the countries of the Slavic South, with an emphasis on Bulgarian, Croatian, and Serbian women’s poetry. The starting point of the research lies in the established notions of women’s writing in a South Slavic context. The aim of the study is to compare the main tendencies in women’s poetic writing and to discuss the shared or nationally specific features of contemporary women’s poetry in accordance with the cultural contexts in which it emerges. Contemporary women’s poetry is analyzed through the lens of distinct poetic models based on the construction of the female subject, specific problematics, thematic range, and other factors. The poetic phenomena are examined in two directions: in relation to those from the late 20th century and in a synchronic perspective. The study also pays special attention to the question of the possible formation of a female poetic canon. In this regard, the anthology production from the turn of the century and the first decades of the 21st century is also analyzed.
Keywords: South Slavic women‘s poetry; women‘s writing; feminism; anthologies
The Family Novel in Post-Yugoslav Literatures
Ina Hristova
Sofia University
https://doi.org/10.53656/bel-2026-1s-10
Abstract. The article1 examines, in a comparative perspective, works from Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian literature that are representative of the family novel. The analysis focuses on the following aspects of novelistic structure: modes of conceptualizing family history; the relationship between history, memory, and trauma; narrative and stylistic strategies. Particular attention is paid to the autobiographical code present in a large number of the examined works, as well as to the frequent use of a female narrative perspective. The synthesis of the analytical observations reveals a number of similarities among the works discussed, which makes it possible to define shared typological characteristics.
Keywords: Serbian and Croatian literature; family novel; family history; memory and trauma.
The Intellectual in Power: Reciprocal Interpretations of Events after 1989 (V. Havel, Zh. Zhelev, B. Dimitrova, A. Michnik)
Slaveia Dimitrova Dimitrova
Sofia University
https://doi.org/10.53656/bel-2026-1s-11
Abstract. The article[i] examines the place and the social roles assigned to intellectuals following the events of the autumn of 1989 in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Poland. The central questions are, among others, why exactly were they the ones expected to shape political life; did they manage to observe political processes objectively, since they were also active participants in them; how did they perceive their own place in politics; which events did they comment on, etc. Investigated as emblematic examples of intellectuals in power are V. Havel, Zh. Zhelev, B. Dimitrova and A. Michnik. The analysis focuses primarily on some of their interviews, public speeches, discussion contributions and essays, all dating from the first decade of democracy. A number of statements and assessments of the political crises in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia before and after 1989 reveal a sense of community. At the same time, it is notable that Zhelev and Dimitrova comment on the recent past and the present in the Central European countries much more frequently than Havel and Michnik do on events in Bulgaria. The article develops the argument that the overlap in the analyzed authors’ perceptions is due as much on their similar experience of totalitarianism as on the fact that even before entering politics, they had been reading each other’s works, both literally and figuratively.
Keywords: intellectual; politics; 1989; democratic changes; post-socialism
