СТАРОБЪЛГАРСКОТО ПЕСНОТВОРЧЕСТВО ОТ IX ВЕК: ОПИТ ЗА ХРОНОЛОГИЯ
THE OLD BULGARIAN CHANT-WRITING FROM THE IXth CENTURY: A SUGGESTED CHRONOLOGY

Summary/Abstract: The study provides observations on certain features of the language and spelling of the phrasal acrostics from the Golden Age in order to specify the chronological sequence in which the Old Bulgarian chants were written and to outline the entire strategy according to which the chant-writing in Bulgaria at the end of the IXth and the beginning of the Xth century was conducted. Some of the acrostics are compared with the earliest epigraphs from north-eastern Bulgaria, such as the church-donor's inscription near Izbul village, the graphite on the baptistery of the Round Church in Preslav and others. Several peculiarities in both the acrostic and the content of the triadika (stichera in praise of the Holy Trinity) discovered by Klimentina Ivanova, make it possible to hypothesize that these triadika were composed in or near Pliska in the reign of the Bulgarian Prince (Knyaz) Vladimir-Rasate (889-893). The most significant conclusion of the overall analysis is that the work on the Slavonic Menaion was divided in advance into two stages: 1) In the capital city of Pliska the texts for the primary Christian feasts were prepared, that is for the 12 feasts of the Lord and of the Theotokos (the chief among which are a part of the Triodion, which was elaborated during the same period), as well as for the most important commemorations among the others. 2) The autumn gathering in 893 in the new Bulgarian capital Preslav may be provisorilly recognized as the starting point of the second stage. Most likely in this period the huge corpus of translations and original works for the secondary feasts, such as celebrations of saints, was created.

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