From April 18 to 20, 2023, the Third National Annual Scholarly Conference of the Center for Excellence "Heritage BG" was held in hall 19 of the Prince's Palace. Seven researchers from the Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Thracology participated in the event. The conference was opened by Prof. Alexandre Kostov, Dr. habil., Corresponding Member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences who deliver a report entitled "Towards the modernization of health system in the Balkans at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century: Outpatient medical care". Six more presentations of participants in the "Unknown Balkans" project treated new and poorly researched scholarly issues. Those reports were delivered by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zlatomira Gerdzhikova, Assist. Prof. Dr. Vesela Atanasova, Assist. Prof. Dr. Adriana Serbova, Assist. Prof. Dr. Samuil Kamburov, Assist. Prof. Dr. Ivaylo Nachev, and Eli Filipova, PhD student. All papers were followed by interesting and fruitful discussions.

More about the reports is available here.

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On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the inscription of the Rila Monastery in the UNESCO World Heritage List, from April 21 to 27, 2023, the photo documentary exhibition Le cœur de la Bulgarie. Exposition du monastère de Rila pour l'UNESCO / The Heart of Bulgaria. Rila Monastery Exhibition for UNESCO will be presented at the UNESCO House in Paris. The exhibition is prepared by a team of the Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Tracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and is supported by the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science under the National Scientific Programme "Bulgarian Studies".

The exhibition is organized under the patronage of the National Commission of the Republic of Bulgaria for UNESCO with the courtesy of the Rila Monastery, the Permanent Delegation of the Republic of Bulgaria to UNESCO, and the State Cultural Institute at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria.

The official opening will take place on April 24, 2023 (Monday) at 12.30 at the UNESCO House in Paris (7 place de Fontenoy, 75007 Paris).

We are looking forward to welcoming you.

The scholarly forum is organized by the Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Tracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences under the project "The Vocabulary of Constantine of Preslav's Uchitel'noe evangelie ('Didactic Gospel'): Old Bulgarian-Greek and Greek-Old Bulgarian Word Indices", funded by the Bulgarian National Science Fund (agreement No. KP-06-H50/2). Partner in this event is the Regional History Museum - Sofia.

35 prominent scholars from Bulgaria, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and the Czech Republic will participate, as well as young researchers from Bulgaria, Austria and Croatia.

The conference program is available on the project website: https://uchitelnoevangelie.eu/sabitiya/

The official opening of the conference is on April 25, 2023 at 17h00 at Hall 1 of the Serdika Ancient Cultural and Communication Complex.

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The purpose of this conference is to emphasize the problem of “otherness” in the context of Church history. In the Bible, the Saviour defines two groups, those “blessed by My Father”, who will inherit the Kingdom prepared for them “since the creation of the world” (Matt. 25: 34-40), and the “cursed”, who will be sent to “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25: 41-46). The Lord reveals himself only to “the pure in heart” (Matt. 5:8).
Besides the identification of otherness, the Church prescribes the recipe for the birth of the “new” man: repentance. According to the ecclesiastic philosophers, the difference between righteous and sinners (between “us” and “them”) has been established according to the divine design of Creation.

The aim of this conference is to bring together researchers with common interests in a discussion on several leading questions: where are the categories “us” and “them” situated; who are the “others”; how is their image constructed.

The international conference is open to specialists from different fields: historians, culturologists, theologians, art historians, archivists, philologists, philosophers, etc. The conference will be held in Sofia (Bulgaria) on 8-9 November 2023. Online participation will be very welcomed.

The main topics are the following:

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The Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Thracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (IBSCT-BAS) is pleased to invite you to the public lecture of Kaloyan Konstantinov (IBSCT-BAS) Forge of Myths: The 'Islamic' Revolution in Iran.

The event is organised under the initiative Every Second Tuesday and will be held on April 11, 2023 (Tuesday) at 17:00 at the IBSCT-BAS (Moskovska Street No. 45).

We are looking forward to welcoming you!

On April 12, 2023 (Wednesday) at 17:00 at the Regional History Museum in Sofia, Retrocafe hall (2nd floor), Banski Square No. 1, the collective monograph MIRABILIA: TIMES, SPACES, MYTHS (Studia balkanica 36 ) will be presented. Compilers and editors: Lozanova-Stancheva, V. and Fol, V. The book is a result of the third interdisciplinary conference on the same topic, held on June 8-9, 2021 at the American Research Center in Sofia (ARCS) and with its courtesy and partnership.

The collective monograph is aimed at research from various points of view, methodology and applying different scholarly tools of the mirabilia-myth relationship in diverse spaces and times. The main goal is to clarify the mechanisms of construction of the mirabilia phenomenon by means of the fundamental categories of time – space – myth in their dynamic interconnection. The focus is on the genesis of myths, their temporal and spatial dimensions in the context of the categories "miracles" and "miraculous". The papers trace the anatomy and evolution of these categories, as well as their metaphorical metamorphoses in sacred and profane contexts. The cultural categories of "miracles" and "myths" with an emphasis on their spatio-temporal parameters are interpreted in their dynamic relationships and functional characteristics in relation to various fields of humanities, such as religion and mythology, literature, politics and language in different historical eras.

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We are pleased to invite you to the next meeting of the "Unknown Balkans" Discussion Club, which will be held on April 10, 2023. Prof. Raia Zaimova, Dr. habil. and Prof. Raymon Detrez, PhD will discuss the topic "European modernity and Bulgarian historiography of the 18th and the 19th century".

The event will be held on April 10, 2023 at 16:00 at the Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Tracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Moskovska Street No 45 and online via  Zoom platform: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82869799233. The discussion is open to everyone.

The "Unknown Balkans" Discussion Club is organized under the project Building a supreme achievements centre "Heritage BG".

Annotation in Bulgarian

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On March 29, 2023, the Department of History and Ethnology of the Faculty of Classical Studies and Humanities of the Democritus University of Thrace in Komotini honored Prof. Dr. Roumiana Ilieva Preshlenova, Director of the Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Tracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, with the distinction doctor honoris causa for her contribution to the development of the Balkan Studies and Bulgarian-Greek scholarly cooperation. The ceremony was preceded by a scholarly meeting on the topic "Balkan culture in the age of modernity" with participation of Bulgarian and Greek scholars. The event was attended by teachers and students, as well as a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria Mr. Valentin Pavlov, counsellor at the Consulate General of the Republic of Bulgaria in Thessaloniki.

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On March 24, 2023, Bisser Banchev, PhD affiliated with the Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Tracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences was a guest on Euronews Bulgaria. He discussed the arrangement reached in Ohrid on how to implement the agreement signed in February of this year between Serbia and Kosovo.

The full interview is available here.

The Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Tracology in cooperation with the National Archaeological Institute with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences are pleased to invite you to the public lecture of Assoc. Prof. Maria Torteka, PhD SMC in modern museum network of Ukraine: Problems of theory and practice.

The event will be held on March 28, 2023 (Tuesday) at 11:00 online via Zoom:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81018731023

Meeting ID: 810 1873 1023

We are looking forward to welcoming you!

On March 14, 2023, Prof. Alexandre Kostov, Dr. habil., Corresponding Member of the Bulgarian Academy of sciences handed over to the director of the Regional History Museum in Silistra the certificates of the participants in the training of museum specialists, which was successfully held in February. Museum specialists had the opportunity to listen to eight lectures and participate in the subsequent discussions, asking important questions for their scholarly research. The discussion format after each lecture allowed lecturers to enrich their scholarly knowledge with new information provided by the museum specialists.

The training of museum specialists will continue in the upcoming months.

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On March 13, 2023, the third meeting of the "Unknown Balkans" Discussion Club was held. The topic was "Medicine and health care in the Balkans in the 19th and 20th centuries". The leading debaters Prof. Alexandre Kostov, Dr. habil., Corresponding Member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and Assist. Prof. Ivaylo Nachev, PhD presented the development of medicine and health care in several Balkan countries in the period from the 1870s to the middle of the 20th century. Prof. Stefan Panayotov, D.Sc. from the National Center for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases and Prof. Georgeta Nazarska, PhD affiliated with the University of Library Science and Information Technology actively participated in the discussion. Students and researchers, interested in the history of medicine in the Balkans also took part.

The Discussion Club is organized by the "Unknown Balkans" project, part of the Building a supreme achievements centre "Heritage BG".

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