Смехът на цар Симеон
The laughter of Tsar Simeon

Summary/Abstract: The paper claims that the Bulgarian tsar Simeon’s (893–927) relations to the highest authorities of the Byzantine State and Church can be characterized by parody. Simeon’s funny behaviour is reflected in his correspondence in Greek and it served as a cultural-diplomatic analogue to his military campaigns. For reasons of parody, the Bulgarian tsar uses quotations from the Gospels to give them twisted sense. This is the first manifestation of Old Bulgarian laughter which can be carefully compared to parodia sacra in Western Europe. However, after the death of Tsar Simeon, this laughter shortly disappeared leaving Bulgarian culture for a long time.

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