Historical and Apocalyptic Literature in Byzantium and Medieval Bulgaria

The book presents a panorama of the extraordinarily rich and varied tradition of historical and apocalyptical literature in tenth- through seventeenth-century medieval Bulgaria. A number of Old Church Slavonic texts are described and analyzed, as both a critical edition and a translation with commentary. These texts include The Vision and Interpretation of Daniel, The Revelation of Pseudo-Methodius Patarensis, The Last Vision of Prophet Daniel, Prophet Isaiah’s Vision of the Final Days, The Oracles of Leo the Wise, and Andreas Salos’ Apocalypses. The Bulgarian tradition is analysed by examining not only the reception of Byzantine texts in Bulgaria, but also the reproduction and transformation of such texts, as well as the creation of an impressive number of original works, including Isaiah’s Narrative, The Bulgarian Apocryphal Chronicle, Pandeh’s Prophetic Story, The Story of Sibyl, and Razumnik-ukaz. The production of this type of medieval literature in the Byzantine-Slavonic commonwealth covers a wide variety of genres, including narrative works, chronicles, questions and answers, and brief oracles. The proliferation of this unique phenomenon of historical and apocalyptic works in medieval Bulgaria has no analogue in other Slavic literatures.