Download PDF | Ivan Biliarsky - Word and Power in Mediaeval Bulgaria-Brill Academic Publishers (2011).
593 Pages
FOREWORD
This book is the result of a project commenced long ago. I have probably always been interested in what lies concealed within words, in the unsuspected depths and secrets hidden even in the most common word. We can delve into countless layers beneath it and-as in some romantic picture of archaeology-come upon all sorts of wonders, discover hidden ancient meanings that we never even imagined had any connection with the present-day meaning of the word.
We suddenly perceive that those remote meanings are very relevant, that they disclose the modern meaning more amply. We rediscover the path of our ancestors that led to this little word "of ours" Of course this interest-which some may call "childish" -is only a remote precondition for undertaking a concrete research.
I believe it obvious that this study actually began with my first doctoral thesis, which dealt with institutions. I understood even then that, in Bulgaria, the available sources are of such a kind that we can not study a phenomenon without first dealing with the question of its name. And in some cases a name is all we have-nothing else.
Reflecting on appellations, I came to one other conclusion: in some cases they are a testimony not only to the antiquity of a word and its long historical path, but also that the society where it was used belonged, in cultural terms, to a broader civilisation. For, perhaps, the ancestors in question did not create a given word by themselves, but simply borrowed it, "constructed" it (an apt way of referring to the formation of words) on the basis of a foreign one. In the case of mediaeval Bulgaria, its entire culture, and especially its law, testifies to its affiliation to the great Eastern Roman Empire, to the New Rome, Constantinople.
The concrete work on the topic began with an article I prepared as a fellow at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland; the text was later published in Birmingham, in the collection Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. But I began systematically working on my investigations during 2003-2004, a time I spent as fellow in the New Europe College in Bucharest, the specific topic of my project being the legal vocabulary in Bulgarian mediaeval documents. This was an exceptionally fruitful period for me, and I now take this opportunity to thank the college for the possibility it provided me then.
In 2006 I was summer fellow in the Centre for Byzantine Studies, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C., working on the same topic; my stay and research there proved decisive for the final result of my efforts. I now extend my thanks for this opportunity, kindly provided me; I also thank Prof. Predrag Matejic, director of Hilandar Research Library, Ohio State University, and the whole team responsible for that wonderful collection of microfilms of Slavic manuscripts, that I was able to consult during my stay in the United States.
That is how my present work came about. It is a rather voluminous one and I fear that, like every large work, it might be ridden with errors. The responsibility for the latter is entirely my own, but for the good that I hope it also contains, I want to express my thanks to all colleagues and friends that have supported me in various ways during its preparation: Maria Yovcheva, Hans Hattenhauer, Ivan Bozilov, Theodor Piperkov, Irina Vainovski, Krassimir Stancev, Tania Slavova, Anna-Maria Totomanova, Mariyana Tsibranska, Vladimir Vladov (who translated the text so carefully) and so many others. And also I would like strongly to express my gratitude to Penka and Nikolay, my dear friends, without help of whom I would be completely lost.
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