Prof. Dr. Lyudmil Dimitrov
Sofia University
https://doi.org/10.53656/for2024-02-10
Absract. The text traces and comments on an unknown side of Prof. Ivan Shishmanov’s work and scientific achievements – his lectures dedicated to the Slavs and the Slavic world, written in German and read during the academic year 1923/1924 at the invitation of the University of Freiburg in Germany. Attention is paid to the concept of the Slavs and their place among other peoples in Europe – closer and more distant, which the professor develops, to the role of Bulgaria and the codification of the Old Bulgarian language in the formation of the all-Slavic
culture during the Middle Ages, as well as to the modeling of the native and the
pan-Slavic literary canon in interaction with the Western European canon: what
we accept from the West and what the West tends to accept from us. The study is
also dedicated to the upcoming Bulgarian edition of Prof. Shishmanov’s German
lectures, one hundred years after they were delivered.
Keywords: canon; Slavic world; Ivan Shishmanov; identity; Slavic studies