Bulgarian culture

The tribes that inhabited the territory of modern Bulgaria in ancient times created a developed material culture, the most famous monument of which is the Varna Necropolis , a cultural monument of Bulgaria from the Neolithic era.

The Thracians who inhabited Bulgaria at the turn of our era left behind famous architectural monuments, including the tomb in Kazanlak and the tomb in Sveshtara , which bear the imprint of ancient Greek cultural influence. At the same time, there was also the influence of the Thracians on the ancient Greeks - for example, Orpheus , a character in ancient Greek mythology, was considered the son of the Thracian god Eagra .

The nomadic proto-Bulgarians who appeared on the territory of modern Bulgaria introduced distinctive elements into the Bulgarian culture. The famous Madara Horseman is a bas-relief on a rock, knocked out around 710 . In the religious sphere between the proto-Bulgarians and Slavs the world reigned - in the graves of the 9th century, the Slavs and proto-Bulgarians were buried together. At the same time, Christians were persecuted.

However, it was precisely thanks to the proximity to the highly developed Byzantine civilization and especially thanks to the baptism of Bulgaria by Tsar Boris I in 865 that Bulgarian culture received a new impetus for development. The creation of the Cyrillic alphabet is considered the most important achievement of the Bulgarian culture of this period: Cyril and Methodius were from Thessaloniki and probably were Bulgarians, and Clement of Ohrid was born in Bulgaria . In memory of this, on May 24 in Bulgaria is celebrated the day of Bulgarian enlightenment, culture and Slavic writing. In Bulgaria, there were Preslav and Ohrid book schools , where active work was carried out to translate books into Old Slavonic and to rewrite them.

The need to build temples for worship laid the foundation for Bulgarian architecture itself. The most famous monuments of Bulgarian architecture of this time are the Rila Monastery and the Boyana Church .

Byzantine traditions contributed to the development of fine art, although Thracian tombs of more than a thousand years ago were also decorated with frescoes. The originality of the Bulgarian school of icon painting is evidenced by the use of ceramics as a basis not for planks. At the same time, the existence of fairly strict canons in icon painting somewhat limited the development of their own traditions. The frescoes of the cave churches in Ivanovo bear both the imprint of national traditions and the features of the “ Paleologian revival ”. Also known are the murals of the Boyana Church (especially murals dating back to 1259 depicting the founders of the monastery ( ktitor ) - Kaloyan and Desislava), the church of St. George in Sofia , Rila and Poganovsky monasteries . At the same time, Eastern Bulgaria to a greater extent experienced Byzantine cultural influence, while in South-Western Bulgaria (modern Macedonia ) national traditions were better preserved. The frescoes created by the masters of the Tarnovo school are influenced by the “Paleologian revival”.

The close connection between Bulgarian and Byzantine culture was facilitated by political events: in 1018, the last fragment of the First Bulgarian Kingdom - the Western Bulgarian Kingdom - was annexed to Byzantium. After the death of the Bulgarian archbishop Ivan Debrsky in 1037, Leo, a Greek by birth, took his post. From that moment on, many positions in the church hierarchy were occupied by the Greeks, and worship was usually translated into a language incomprehensible to the majority of the population. The service in the Old Slavonic language was preserved only in individual monasteries and in churches in some estates of the feudal lords-Bulgarians. However, thanks to a sufficiently developed national identity, the Bulgarians repeatedly revolted in the XI - XII centuries , and in 1185 the Second Bulgarian Kingdom was founded.

• A Brief History of Bulgaria / Otv. ed. G.G. Litavrin. - Moscow: "Science", 1987. - 558 p.