Печатни Библии от Европа разпространени по българските земи през XVIII и XIX век
Bibles from Europe, Spread in the Bulgarian Lands throughout the 18th and 19th c.

Summary/Abstract: This study is an examination of various Bibles from the 18th-19th century in the collections of the Manuscripts and Old Books Department of the SS Cyril and Methodius National Library in Sofia with the intention of penetrating their cultural and political context as well as their technical and artistic and decorative scheme, as the outcome of a certain social condition and historical development of a people at the time of their printing. Thus the West has proven its cultural and economic charge, by creating Bibles with a wealth of decoration on the covers, exceptional illustrations, maps and curves, and not infrequently with addresses of their donors (presented in the first pages), whose support created these books. This influence reflected even in Russia, in particular in the reign of Peter the Great – the Bible, created under his order greatly resembles those from Western Europe, contrary to all subsequent Bibles. Greek Bibles on the other hand were printed when the strategy of Megali Ellada (the movement to restore the former Byzantine Empire) was transformed until it finally died out. This is why none of the magnificence and the luxury of the former Eastern Empire is there, rather they are quite simple. The most dazzling, most impressive and best designed Bibles however were created in the Protestant countries, in Germany, Holland and Sweden, which is a clear indication of the ideological and creative potential, the economic and psychological advance of their people a century after the Reformation. Whether it was by chance or not, or a coincidence or not, for good or evil today the Protestant countries are among the most prosperous, the most influential in the field of culture. Maybe the basis of their raise and gradual growth as states may be found namely in these Bibles, kept in the collections of the SS Cyril and Methodius National Library.

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