Игри с букви и думи, или още нещо за българската книжовна култура през ХІV век
Playing with letters and words or something more about the Bulgarian literary culture in the fourteenth century

Summary/Abstract: It is well-known that the Bulgarian literary tradition, prevailingly of religious character, lacks essential contents of what is generally regarded as Byzantine court and secular intellectual culture. The leading role of the kings Simeon and Peter in building up of the first Golden Age of Bulgarian literacy (c. 886–969) is attested by the sources, even though the existence of their luxury illuminated royal manuscripts is still an issue to debate in Bulgarian and Russian scholarship. Luckily, manuscripts preserved from the time of the Second Bulgarian State – and more precisely from the late thirteenth and fourteenth century – are authentic evidences of royal commission and aesthetic preferences of the highest social strata. They reveal a general tendency towards enhancing the visual impact of the written words. The thesis proposed here and grounded on a selection of manuscripts is that a new artistic modus expressed itself by calligraphic refinement and interplay of letters and words. Its rise may be seen not only in the context of Hesychast sensitivity to the perfection of the written text, but in so far as the ruler’s patronage – Ivan Alexander’s in this case – is a key agent of the literary life, a growing political self-confidence is also to be considered. However, behind the calligraphy and word-letter plays, adopting Byzantine patterns, one may not see remarkably educated court elite. Rich, but nevertheless limited within certain frames, it was the monastic literary culture which shaped the external visible signs of wisdom and knowledge, needed to elaborate the power’s prestigious image.

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