Bulgarian-Ukrainian Relations in the Late Middle Ages in the Works of Ukrainian Scholars of the 19th–First Quarter of the 20th Century
Authors: SHPYK Igor 
Published: April 2023

Background: One of the least researched periods of Bulgarian-Ukrainian intercul-tural dialogue is late Middle Ages period. It is explained by the low number of sources and their fragmented character, and mainly by incomplete methodology of their pro-cessing, lack of respective conceptual approaches, which are still applied, despite seri-ous criticism. In the second part of the 20th century Ukrainian Slavic Studies, being under mo-nopoly influence of the Russian historiographic patterns, fully accepted the concept of the “second South Slavic influence”, artificially adapting it to the Ukrainian late Middle Ages history. Definitely it was not beneficial for it as self-sufficient processes of reli-gious and cultural relations of Ukraine-Rus with Bulgaria of the 14th–15th centuries were narrowed down only to one abstract phenomenon, which main recipient undoubt-edly was Moscow. Purpose: Modern Ukrainian researchers continue using the term “second South Slavic influence”, and this automatically makes their texts not only a bit terminologically vague, but often retranslates outdated historiographic patterns with clearly expressed myth-making elements. To finally neutralize the afore-mentioned tendency, one should refer back to the origins of our national historiography that includes alternative interpre-tations of cultural relations of Ukraine-Rus with Bulgaria and other South Slavic coun-tries in the late Middle Ages period. Their subsequent analysis is the man objective of this article. Results: Ukrainian scholars of the 19th – first quarter of the 20th century rigorous-ly studied all the aspects of Bulgarian-Ukrainian relations of the late Middle Ages peri-od known at that time. I. Franko and М. Hrushevsky contributed to these studies the most, and some of their opinions are based both on the in-depth knowledge of Ukraini-an and Bulgarian cultural and religious life, and the results of comparative analysis of the respective book and literary monuments, therefore they are still scientifically topical. At the same time, materials of all these studies, irrespective of their scientific value, is an inseparable part of Ukrainian Slavic researchers’ knowledge about the place of their cul-tural heritage within the system of interslavic relations of ancient times. Key words: Bulgaria, Ukraine-Rus, cultural relations, “second South Slavic influ-ence”, the late Middle Ages, Ukrainian Slavic Studies. Dashkevich, N., 1904. Several facts on Rus’ communication with South Slavs in Lith-uanian-Polish period of its history, including dumas. Kievan Anthology dedicated to Т. D. Florinsky. Kiev, pp.117–137. (In Russian) Franko, I. Ya., 1981. Collection of works. In 50 volumes, 30. 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