Bulgarian literary heritage of the 10th and early 11th-centuries in Old Rus': content and dimensions

Both traditional and modern approaches to the cultural links between Bulgaria and Rus' in the 10 and early 11 centuries tend to privilege certain topics, such as movements of particular people and cultural objects; the creation, copying and editing of particular texts; or the adoption and interpretation of ideas. The lack of sufficient sources has often encouraged both historians and philologists to rely on hypotheses that look more like guesswork. However, the body of archeographical and textological studies has increased considerably, with special emphasis on the earliest layer of the written evidence dating back to the period during which a common cultural milieu of the Orthodox Slavs - the Slavia Orthodoxa - was taking shape. The results of those studies reveal a much more complicated role of the Christian culture of Bulgaria, in both oral and written form. They also highlight the multiplicity of levels and channels through which secular and church institutions interacted-monastic centers, princely courts etc . The present article discusses some examples of particular "dimensions" of the Christian culture of 10th - to early 11th-century Bulgaria in the context of the concomitent rise of the cultural milieu known as Slavia Orthodoxa.

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