On September 19, 2012, Predrag Matejic was presented with the blue ribbon, the highest award that the University of Sofia “Kliment Ohridski” can bestow on one of its graduates, for his outstanding contribution to the study of Bulgarian culture.
The event was announced on the Sofia University website. The announcement is summarized below in English.
On 24 September 2012 at 11am in the Conference Hall of the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” Department of Cyrillo-Methodian Studies, Predrag Matejic, Curator of the Hilandar Research Library and Director of the Resource Center for Medieval Slavic Studies at The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA, will lead a roundtable discussion. Professor Matejic will discuss the history of these two institutions and their future plans and projects, as well as the history of the longstanding relationship between Bulgarian scholars and this library and center. In the Hilandar Research Library are preserved a large number of microfilms of exceptionally valuable Slavic manuscripts, the originals of which are still kept in Hilandar Monastery [on Mount Athos] and in many other repositories around the world. The microfilms are used by many Bulgarian and foreign scholars and, as a result of such research, significant discoveries have been made in the field of Bulgarian and in Slavic and Balkan culture. The center aids scholars in their search for sources and literature.
Professor Matejic has a master’s degree from Yale University and a doctorate from Ohio State in the field of Slavic literatures and languages. His contribution to the study of the history of Bulgarian literature is invaluable. In 1978 he received his doctorate of philological sciences from Sofia University. In his dissertation he analyzed the literary works of a hitherto fore unknown medieval Bulgarian writer from the 14th century, which he discovered in a manuscript. The dissertation was published as a book in Bulgaria under the title “the Bulgarian hymnographer Efrem from the 14th cent.”
