ENRICO DAMIANI E L’INSEGNAMENTO DELLA STORIA DELLA LETTERATURA ITALIANA ALL’UNIVERSITÀ DI SOFIA
Enrico Damiani and teaching History of the Italian Literature at Sofia University

Summary/Abstract: The article is dedicated to a so far unstudied aspect of cultural activities of the eminent Italian scholar of Slavonic and Bulgarian languages, Prof. Enrico Damiani (1892 – 1953), namely, his teaching of History of the Italian Literature at Sofia State University in the period 1928 – 1936. Information about the contents of the extra courses he read there has been taken from the News Items of the Итало-българско списание за литература, история, изкуство brought out in Bulgarian language in Sofia from 1931 to 1936. Some of his lectures prepared for print enjoyed a hearty welcome on the pages of the Bulgarian literary journals in the period between the two world wars, as well as in the volumes of Biblioteca di Cultura italiana. The Italian Professor’s teaching activities mirrored his literary preferences: preponderance of contemporary literature (the Nobelists Grazia Deledda and Luigi Pirandello) over the authors and themes from the Italian classic literature (Niccolò Machiavelli, Carlo Goldoni). Although to a more limited degree, as compared to the range of his Slavonic and Bulgarian studies, popularization of Italian literature by the Italian Professor in the universities and literary circles in a number of Bulgarian towns had undoubtedly contributed to the Bulgarian-Italian cultural relations.

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