Николов, А. „Ако ази истърва тази работа, то е за мене пропаст“. Сведения за зографа Рачо Тихолов от архива на архиерейското наместничество в гр. Плевен. - В: Известия на Специализирания музей за резбарско и зографско изкуство - Трявна, 8, 2024, 217-240 ΙSSN 1313-6356
"If I lose this job, it is going to be disaster for me". Evidence about the icon painter Racho Ti... more "If I lose this job, it is going to be disaster for me". Evidence about the icon painter Racho Tiholov from the archive of the Metropolitan's Vicariate in Pleven
Racho Tiholov (1828-1914) was born in Gabrovo and was formed as an icon painter in accordance with the traditions of the Tryavna art school. Based on unpublished documents from the State archive in Pleven, the article presents some details about his work in the Pleven region in the late nineteenth century.
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Papers by Angel Nikolov
The article contains an edition of the appeal for support from the monastery of St Theodore Tiron and St Theodore Stratilates near Perushtitsa addressed to the Russian Tsar Aleksey Mihaylovich at the end of 1647. A hypothesis is proposed that the letter was composed by the famous copyist and calligrapher Vasiliy of Sofia, who usually worked together with a close relative or student of him called Stefan. Based on unpublished Russian documents, the journey of the abbot of the Perushtitsa Monastery, Hieromonk Isaiah, to Moscow is described. On February 4, 1648, he and his two companions were received by the Metropolitan of Kiev, Silvestr Kossov, who gave them a letter of recommendation to all Orthodox Christians. By the end of February, they arrived at the Russian border in Putivl’, and on March 13, they departed for the Russian capital together with Bishop Cyprian of Campania. They arrived in Moscow on March 28 and were immediately received in the Kremlin, where they presented their petitions and documents and received gifts and money. On April 22, the tsar solemnly received the delegations led by Bishop Cyprian and Abbot Isaiah in the Golden Throne Chamber in the Kremlin. At the end of April, the envoys from the Perushtitsa Monastery visited the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, and on May 8, 1648, they received donations and permission to leave Moscow and to return back to their country
The article aims to offer the reader an introduction to the forthcoming publication of an appeal for support from the monastery of St. Theodore Tiron and St. Theodore Stratilates addressed in 1647 to the Russian Tsar Aleksey Mihaylovich. Firstly, the monastic network in the northern Rhodopes near Plovdiv in the 16th-17th centuries is presented. The history of the Perushtitsa monastery from its appearance in the first half of the 17th century to its destruction during the brutal suppression of the April Uprising in 1876 is briefly discussed, manuscripts that were kept in the monastery library are presented.
In the article an appeal for support from of the monastery of St Nicholas near the village of Bohot (Pleven municipality, North-Central Bulgaria), issued on 26 October 1642 and addressed to the Russian Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov, is published for the first time. The original of the document is preserved in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts and is so far known only from a brief summary by Olga Todorova. The monks begged the Tsar to support them with money, as they were in debt after the Ottoman deputy governor (mütesellim) of Nikopol had fined them unjustly for the murder of two people by wandering robbers within the monastery’s property. Based on an analysis of the preamble of the charter, it is assumed that the initiator of its drafting and the organizer of the delegation of the monks to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich in 1643 probably was the then bishop of Rimnik (and future metropolitan of Wallachia) Ignatius, a Bulgarian and former priest from Nikopol. The delegation of the monks from Bohot was detained in the town of Putyvl on the Russian border (in present day North-East Ukraine) and was not allowed to proceed to Moscow. Nothing more is known about the fate of this monastery, which perished at an unknown date after 1643; even its location remains unknown.
The article is devoted to the history of a long disappeared monastery in the vicinity of the town of Pleven - the monastery of St. Nicholas near the village of Bohot. For the first time, the monastic brotherhood's petition to the Russian Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich dated 26 October 1642 is published in full translation into Bulgarian. It is assumed that the monastery was founded in the Middle Ages and continued to function (with some interruptions) until at least the middle - second half of the 17th century. In this context the unclear question of the importance of Pleven during the period of the Second Bulgarian Empire is also considered.
The article studies the fate and the content of a parchment manuscript, containing an Office Menaion, two parts of which have found their way to the Church Historical and Archival Institute of the Bulgarian Patriarchate in Sofia (CHAI) and the Historical Museum of Teteven (IM–Teteven), respectively. The manuscript was written at the end of the 13th or the beginning of the 14th century. The place of its creation can be located with relative accuracy thanks to two marginal notes in memory of the oikonomos of the Krushevo metochion of the Athonite Hilandar monastery, in the Western part of the Metohija region (today in the Republic of Kosovo). By 1858, the two fragments were still part of a single codex and were owned by a Bulgarian from Craiova, Hristo Hadzhi Danailov, who later donated a portion of the manuscript on behalf of himself and of his brother Dimitar to the Bulgarian community centre in Craiova (founded in 1871). It was this part of the manuscript that ended up in the museum collection of Teteven in 1922.
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By 1935, the rest of the manuscript was owned by Stefan Tsvetkov from the town of Svishtov, the son of Angel Tsvetkov, a wealthy local merchant and a member of the first church board of the Holy Trinity Cathedral (consecrated 1867). This larger part of the manuscript was sold in 1937 by Mikhail Stamboliyev, a teacher from the town of Russe to the Church Museum in Sofia and belongs today to the CHAI collection (Ms no. 501).
The paper explores codicological, palaeographic and orthographic features of the Teteven fragment. The numbering of the quires and the similarity with the Serbian Menaion Hlud. 156 from the State Historical Museum in Moscow (GIM) allow the assumption that the two parts belonged to a voluminous codex containing the services for the complete summer period of the church year. The study of the calendar and the composition of the services indicates the presence of at least two textual layers in the Teteven fragment. One of these layers, common to the Menaia of the Studite liturgical practice, presents already translated texts, inherited from the earlier tradition. The other layer stands closer to Slavonic codices following the Theotokos Evergetis Typikon. It is characterised by distinctive hymns also typical only of Mss Dečani 32 and Ms 113 from SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library (NBKM). Most likely, these particular poetic texts penetrated into the South Slavic milieu through certain Serbian centres in the thirteenth century. The type of the Menaion, the copyist’s notes, and the kinship with Hlud. 156 (written for the Cathedral church of Theotokos of Ljeviš in Prizren) allow us to conclude that the two fragments belong to a codex, which was probably commissioned for one of the great monasteries in Metohija founded by King Stefan II Milutin or by his ancestors.
Racho Tiholov (1828-1914) was born in Gabrovo and was formed as an icon painter in accordance with the traditions of the Tryavna art school. Based on unpublished documents from the State archive in Pleven, the article presents some details about his work in the Pleven region in the late nineteenth century.
This article is devoted to a Bulgarian manuscript collection written in the town of Vidin by several hands around the second-third quarter of the eighteenth century; not later than the first quarter of the nineteenth century it was brought to Teteven, where it has been kept ever since. The collection of texts examined here is a typical example of the later miscellanies of mixed content, which are distinguished by the presence of numerous apocryphal and non-canonical works. Moreover, the inclusion of a number of apotropaic texts in the miscellany allows us to assume that its transcribers-most likely members of a relatively wealthy Vidin family of merchants and priests-had access to older amulet collections, which in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were frequently used in teaching children to read and write. The miscellany is also remarkable in that it reflects the personal tastes and pragmatic needs of its owners, who were not only obsessed with keeping evil forces at bay but also took pains to equip themselves with accurate calendar information on church festivals and fasts throughout the year, a Latin abecedary, and even a short Bulgarian-Hungarian dictionary whose presence in the manuscript hints at distant (most likely commercial) travels.
Collection of the Church Historical and Archival Institute at the Bulgarian
Patriarchate
The present article is devoted to some late transcripts of non-canonical
healing prayers against nezhit (a demon that causes headaches, toothache and rheumatic pains) and fevers (seven, twelve or more demon-sisters that cause fever), which are included in manuscript No. 438 from the collection of the Church Historical and Archival Institute of the Bulgarian Patriarchate (Sofia). The problem of who and why bothered with transcribing the prayers against nezhit in 1865 (this is the latest dated transcription of these texts), when such archaic apocrypha must have seemed like some absurd atavism, is discussed. An analysis of the manuscript (which is a convolute consisting of three once separate parts transcribed between the second half of the eighteenth century and 1865) shows that during this period the priests in the future Bulgarian capital of Sofia diligently copied, preserved, and apparently used the prayers against nezhit and fevers, and the local population (especially in the nearby villages) apparently shared the view that the cure of disease means rather fighting evil spirits (exorcism) than tackling objective physical problems through the means of medicine. These ancient superstitions, fuelled also by some non-canonical Russian prayers that spread among the Bulgarians, contradicted the growing aspiration of the more educated circles of Bulgarian society to build a modern and mass-accessible educational system based on the achievements of European science. Several of the texts under discussion (a cycle of five prayers against nezhit and three Russian healing prayers, including the famous prayer to Archangel Michael the Terrible Warmaster, whose authorship was incorrectly attributed by D.S. Likhachev to Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible) are published in the appendices.
Todor Genkov (1854-1922) belongs to the old Zaharievi family, from which originated many famous Tryavna painters. He was one of the most productive representatives of the late Tryavna Art School. His icons can be found in many regions of the country – Lovech, Veliko Tarnovo, Gabrovo, Targovishte, Stara Zagora and Burgas. The article presents hitherto unknown icons from the Church of the Assumption in the village of Golyamo Bukovo (Sredets municipality), as well as from the church of St. Demetrius in the village of Ablanitsa (Lovech municipality), where the painter worked in 1899-1900 and was forced by the Lovech Diocesan Council to correct some of his works.
The purpose of this article is to analyse some archaeological evidence of Bulgaria’s contacts with the Latin Empire and the Roman Church in the first half of the thirteenth century, some of which only came to light in recent years. Although relatively scarce and heterogeneous, these materials deserve further attention and should be subject to more in-depth interpretations: the lead seals of Latin emperors from Bulgaria (especially those of Baldwin II, found in the fortress of Pleven and in the vicinity of Popovo), a fragment of an early thirteenth-century Romanesque bronze crucifix with gilding from a processional cross found in Preslav, a bronze gilded figurine of a saint with enamel decoration, made in Limoges, discovered in 2018 in Veliko Tarnovo, as well as a lead pilgrim badge from the Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, discovered in 2017 in a mid-thirteenth-century tomb in the medieval town of Hotalich, near Sevlievo.
През първата половина на 13 в. България установила необичайно ин-тензивни политически и църковни контакти със Запада, което има своето логично обяс-нение в драматичните промени на Балканите във връзка с превземането на Константи-нопол от войските на IV кръстоносен поход на 13 април 1204 г. и издигането на Латин-ската империя като водещ политически фактор в политически фрагментираното визан-тийско пространство. Загрижен от обърканата и непредсказуема ситуация във Визан-тия, както и от териториалните претенции на Унгария, българският цар Калоян (1196–1207) разменил няколко писма с папа Инокентий III (1198–1216) и в края на краищата под-чинил Българската църква на Римския престол, а в замяна на 8 ноември 1204 г. в Тър-ново папският легат Лъв Бранкалеонe го миропомазал и сложил на главата му кралска корона. На 14 април 1205 г. Калоян разгромил латинските войски край Адрианопол и пленил император Балдуин I (1204–1205), който приключил живота си в Търново. Оттук нататък България и Латинската империя неведнъж щели да се сблъскат на бойното поле, а понякога щели да бъдат и съюзници, което до голяма степен зависело от техните отношения с останалите фактори в региона – Епир, Сърбия, Унгария, Никея.
Целта на настоящата статия е да маркира някои археологически свидетелства за контактите на България с Латинската империя и Римската църква през първата поло-вина на 13 в., част от които станаха известни през последните години. Макар и оскъдни и разнородни, тези материали заслужават внимание и би трябвало да станат обект на по-задълбочени интерпретации: оловните печати на латинските императори от Бълга-рия (и по-специално тези на Балдуин II, открити в Плевенската крепост и в околностите на Попово), фрагмент от едно романско бронзово позлатено разпятие от процесиен кръст от Преслав, позлатена бронзова фигурка на светец с украса от емайл, произведена в Лимож, открита през 2018 г. във Велико Търново, а също и една оловна поклонническа значка от базиликата Св. Петър в Рим, открита през 2017 г. в гроб от средата на 13 в. в средновековния град Хоталич край Севлиево.
В статье разъясняется история движимого культурного наследия двух монастырских учреждений, основанных российскими гражданами в Болгарии в память о мужестве и героизме русских солдат и офицеров, погибших во время русско-турецкой войны 1877-1878 гг: Вознесенский монастырь с храмом Святого Александра Невского, построенный в 1879-1882 годах по приказу знаменитого "белого генерала" Михаила Скобелева на Бакаджикских горах близ Ямбола; и Рождественский монастырь на Шипке, построенный (и освященный в 1902 году) по инициативе матери генерала, Ольги Скобелевой, исполнительным комитетом во главе с русским дипломатом и государственным деятелем графом Николаем Игнатьевым.
The article clarifies the history of several pieces of mobile heritage of two monastic institutions founded by Russian citizens in Bulgaria to commemorate the bravery and heroism of Russian soldiers and officers killed during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878: Ascension Monastery, with its St. Alexander Nevsky church, built between 1879-1882 on the orders of the famous 'white general' Mikhail Skobelev on the Bakadzhik hills near Yambol; and Nativity Monastery in Shipka, built (and consecrated in 1902) on the initiative of the general's mother, Olga Skobeleva, by a steering committee headed by the Russian diplomat and statesman Count Nikolai Ignatiev.