Medieval Bulgarian Art and Letters in a Byzantine Context ed. by Elka Bakalova, Margaret Dimitrova, and M. A. Johnson (review)

This edited volume, the second of two collections of articles on medieval Bulgaria, consists of twenty-four essays that highlight the art, history, literature, and culture of the region in dialogue with the Byzantine cultural spheres. The first volume, State and Church: Studies in Medieval Bulgaria and Byzantium (American Research Center in Sofia, 2011), centred on the medieval history and historiography of Bulgaria. Together, the two volumes published in English offer a more widely-accessible introduction to the state of medieval studies in Bulgaria.

The articles of the second volume, all beautifully edited and some translated into English, are presented in three categories that examine the cultural contacts between Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire during the medieval period: nine articles focus on art, four on philosophy and theology, and eleven on philology. The essays cover topics such as the iconography and functions of mural decorations, liturgical textiles, and processional crosses; figural and zoomorphic imagery at thresholds; liturgical poetry; monastic and exegetical texts; and the works of Patriarch Evtimii, among others. The articles in each category are preceded by thorough and engaging historiographical essays that highlight the current state of the field in art history, philosophy, and philology with respect to the Bulgarian material, and the work of key scholars in the field, some featured in the volume.

Although varying in length from ten to over sixty-five pages, the articles are all accompanied by footnotes that cite and at times discuss at length both primary and secondary sources. Colour and black and white images of relatively good quality, as well as diagrams and tables supplement the text. Some of the contributions are new, while others are expanded or updated from earlier publications. The essays by Iva Dosseva, Ivanka Gergova, Dorotei Getov, Ivan Dobrev, Kazimir Popkonstantinov, Klimentina Ivanova, Ekaterina Pantcheva Dikova, and Boriana Hristova have previously appeared in Bulgarian, but complement nicely the new essays in the current volume. An annotated bibliography of seventy-one works by Bulgarian scholars published between 1925 and 2011 and focusing on medieval and Byzantine culture, literature, and art in Bulgaria concludes the volume, and it was specifically compiled for this publication. This volume is a welcomed addition to the library of students and scholars interested in the art and culture of medieval Bulgaria and the cultural dialogues among regions in Eastern Europe and the Balkans during the Middle Ages.