site.btaPlace of Bulgarian Literature in World Cultural Heritage among Topics Discussed in Plovdiv

"Bulgarian literature holds a place in the treasury of world culture," literary historian Magdalena Kostova-Panayotova said on Friday, presenting a report on "Identity as Being in the Language", on Friday, the second and last day of an international forum on the Cyrillic alphabet, themed "Alphabet. Language. Identity".

Another report presented at the conference was by Prof. Tsenka Ivanova. It discussed the heritage of the Cyrillic script in the context of contemporary communication. The report looked at how the Cyrillic alphabet has contributed to inter-language communication. Ivanova notes in her report that the Bulgarian brothers Cyril and Methodius, who devised the earliest version of the Slavic alphabet in the 9th century, were canonized as saints because they and their disciples translated and popularized the Bible and disseminated Christianity among the Slavic peoples.

Assoc. Prof, Lachezar Perchekliiski spoke about the historical evolution of the Cyrillic alphabet. He noted that in the 12th century the Cyrillic alphabet superseded the original Glagolitic script of Cyril and Methodius for complex reasons. It may have happened for religious reasons, he said. Perchekliiski discussed cultural and literary parallels between Bulgaria in the 9th-10th century and Bulgaria in the modern era.