Today, at the University of Sofia, Bulgaria, a workshop was held on “Productive Methods in Interdisciplinary Studies of Women and Holiness in the Slavic Middle Ages.” The conference is dedicated to the 160 anniversary of the death of Elena Muteva (1829-1854), a Bulgarian poet, translator, and folklorist, and is sponsored by the “Encyclopaedia Slavica Sanctorum: Saints and Holy Places in Bulgaria” project, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski,” and Manchester University in the UK.
Iskra Khristova-Shomova opened the conference, which consists of nine panels, where each speaker is given 10 minutes. The closing remarks were moderated by Maria Yovcheva.
Below is a list of the participants and their presentation titles. Click on this link for the abstracts of the talks in English.
Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”
Tsvetelin Stepanov, “The Sanctity and the Capital: Trajectories of Women’s Protection”
Catherine Pancheva-Dikova, “How to Translate ‘Pokrov bogorodichen'”
Ana Stoykova, “‘Why have you come here? There are monks here, and you are a woman!’ (Women and Mount Athos in Byzantine and Slavonic Sources)”
Margaret Dimitrova, “Childbirth, Mothers and the Church: What Can We Learn from Medieval Euchologia?”
Julia Zlatkova, “Gender Specifics of Female Patronage and Charity in Late Antiquity”
Diana Atanasova-Pencheva, “The Betrothed and the Bride: Female Martyrdom as a Transformation of Social Roles”
Anisava Miltenova, “The Texts about Evil Women: Deviations of Biblical Stories”
Biliana Kourtasheva, “The Rehabilitation of the Stepmother”
Maya Petrova-Taneva, “Theodora the Queen of Tŭrnovo, Byzantine Empress Theophano, and the Bdinski Zbornik”
Elka Bakalova, “Women Intellectuals in Byzantium: St. Catherine of Alexandria”
Dilyana Radoslavova, “The Semantics of Book Compilation or Topics as a Key in Composing Calendar-Oriented Collections”
Iliana Chekova, “The Repertoire and the Topoi of Women’s Holiness”
Adelina Angusheva-Tihanov, “The Rhetoric of Womanhood: Women in Hagiographical and Medical Discourse in the Slavic Orthodox Middle Ages”
Maria Yovcheva, “Abbas Zosimas from the Vita of St. Mary of Egypt”
Maria Schnitter, “The Specifics of Women’s Holiness in the Orthodox Tradition: The Question of the Saint-Prostitute”
Radoslava Stankova, “The History of the Cult of St. Petka of Tŭrnovo (Paraskeva of Epivat) according to South Slavic Written Sources”
Evelina Mineva, “Byzantine Hymnographic Works of St. Paraskeva of Epivat and their Slavonic Translation”
Desislava Lilova, “Secular and Church Geography in the Imagination of the Period of the Bulgarian Revival”
Vladimir Dimitrov, “Identity Transformations of the Women Saints in Bulgarian Lands at the Time of the Late Revival Period”
Katya Staneva, “Reception and Ideology: the ‘Turkish Tales’ in Bulgarian Booklets (Bŭlgarski knizhnitsi)”
Olga Todorova, “Maiden in Prison: Women’s Martyrdom in the Time of the Ottoman Rule – the Historical Realia and the Literary Folk Fictions”
