Team Members
Project: “The Collection of Early Printed Cyrillic Books at the Library of the Rila Monastery (Research and Scientific Inventory in e-Environment)”
Assist. Prof. Polly Mukanova, PhD
Assistant Professor Polly Mukanova, PhD has experience in the participation, coordination and management of university, national and international projects related to books and libraries and to the transformations in the modern information environment. She teaches Books studies; Bibliophilia; History and Theory of Reading; Traditional Library Services; Digitization of marginal notes, etc. She has participated in national and international conferences on the book and library topics, including „Indigeneity, Nationhood, and Migrations of the Book“ “Indigenity, Nationhood, and Migrations of the Book” in Amherst, University of Massachusetts, USA (2019). Head of the expert group “Book and Society” of the University Youth Knowledge Academy (UNYKA) at ULSIT.
Prof. Vasya Velinova
Prof. Vasya Velinova is a specialist in the field of medieval studies and director of the Center for Slavic-Byzantine Studies “Prof. Ivan Duychev” at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. She teaches bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Old Bulgarian Literature, Bulgarian Medieval Culture between the Balkans and Western Europe, Literature and Aesthetics in the Bulgarian Middle Ages, the Slavic Manuscript, the Ruler in the Literature of the Middle Ages, History and Its Carriers in the Middle Ages, Literary Source Studies. She has specialized in Germany, Italy, Greece. She has given a series of lectures on Slavic palaeography and codicology in Naples – Napoli Orentale University. Her research interests are in the field of the history of Bulgarian medieval literature, medieval literary genres, the decoration of a manuscript book in the Middle Ages, the theory and history of medieval culture. She is the author of the books „The Middle Bulgarian Translation of the Chronicle of Konstantin Manasiy and Its Literary Context“ (2013) and the “Inventory of Slavic Manuscripts from the Collection of the National History Museum in Sofia” (2013, co-authored with Nina Vutova) and numerous scientific studies and articles of the Slavic Musical Manuscripts in the Rila Monastery (2012, co-authored with Asen Atanasov, Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva, Elena Uzunova and Elisaveta Mussakova) and Bilingual Musical Manuscripts (Greek-Church Slavonic) in the Rila Monastery (2017, co-authored with Zhelev and Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva), implemented with the support of the Bulgarian National Science Fund. She is also the author of a number of exhibitions dedicated to the Slavic script and culture.
Prof. Nelly Kostova, PhD
Prof. Nelly Kostova, PhD is a lecturer and researcher with many years of experience in library science. She has extensive experience in working with bookstores in the country and abroad, international contacts and participation in numerous projects related to the development of bibliographies, biobibliographies and digital repositories, implemented in the teaching process of bibliometrics, bibliography and information sources that Kostova teaches. She also has a wealth of experience in organization management – Head of PhD students, Department, Deputy Dean for Academic Affairs at ULSIT (2008-2014), Deputy Chairman of the General Assembly of ULSIT (2015-2018), etc.
Assoc. Prof. Vasil Zagorov, PhD
Assoc. Prof. Vasil Zagorov, PhD graduated in Library and Information Sciences (2001) and Journalism (2003) at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. In the period 2004–2008 he was a full-time doctoral student at the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication at the same university, where he defended his dissertation in the field of book history before the specialized scientific council of the Higher Attestation Commission at the National Library “St. St. Cyril and Methodius”. He began his academic career as a part-time assistant in book history at Sofia University (2005–2016). Since 2009 he has been a full-time employee at the University of Library Studies and Information Technologies, where he has held consecutive academic positions: assistant (2009), senior assistant (2011), associate professor (2014). He teaches bibliography, book history and antiquarian book trade in the bachelor’s specialties of Print Communications, Library Science and Bibliography, Library and Information Management. From 2013 to 2017 he was the head of the Book and Society Department of the Youth Academy for Knowledge Management, and in 2014 he was the head of the Department of Library Science (ULSIT), to which in 2016 he organized a master’s program in “Library’s collections”. Zagorov has a number of publications in the field of bibliography, which address a wide range of issues: Lost in Translation or Lost in Publishing: Introduction of World Literature in Early Modern Bulgarian Publishing via Russian Language Editions (2017); “Management of knowledge and innovation in the field of book history” (2016), “Book publishing abroad in Bulgaria until 1944: periodization – organization – problems” (2015) and others. He has led a number of national projects related to book history, geographic information systems and the digital presentation of bibliographic information. Since 2011 he has been a member of the Bulgarian Library Information Association (BLIA), since 2019 he has been a member of the Board of Directors of BLIA, and since 2012 he is a member of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP). Since 2019, Zagorov has been the editor-in-chief of the academic magazine Publisher.
Jenya Ivanova
library.rila.monastery@gmail.com
Jenya Ivanova – a longtime librarian in the Rila Holy Monastery (2008 – present) will contribute to the full and productive work on the set activities, which will be realized with her assistance and extensive expertise. Ivanova has a Master’s degree in library science with a thesis related to printed Slavonic books, as well as competence in theology. Also, the fact that she has undergraduate in Russian philology will significantly contribute to the work with the rich collection of Russian liturgical books, which predominate in the Slavic Cyrillic collection at the library of the Monastery. Ivanova is a co-organizer of a conference in the Rila Monastery on the occasion of the 550th anniversary of the return of the relics of St. John of Rila from Tarnovgrad to the Rila Monastery. She has participated in video productions and radio broadcasts related to the literary and documentary heritage of the Rila Monastery.
Assist. Prof. Kameliya Hristova–Yordanova, PhD
Archivist at the St. St. Cyril and Methodius National Library and Senior Assistant professor at the Cyrillo-Methodian Research Center at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Member of the Bulgarian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.
She gains a Doctorate degree after defending a dissertation “From Announcement to Annunciation. Six Homilies for Good News in the Rila Collections of Vladislav the Grammarian and Mardarij of Rila”.
Her interests are in the field of Old Church Slavonic studies, history of the Bulgarian language, Slavonic manuscripts and old printed books.
Assist. Prof. Gabriela Angelova, PhD
Assist. Prof. Gabriela Angelova, PhD graduated bachelor’s in Library Science and Bibliography in 2016 at the University of Library Science and Information Technologies. She studied the master’s program Library Collections in 2017 at the Department of Library Science and Bibliography. In 2019 she continued her education in the Ph.D. doctoral program in Book History, Library Science, and Bibliography. She defended her doctoral thesis in 2022 examining the different approaches to private libraries preserved in cultural institutions.
In 2016, Gabriela Angelova started working at the National Library of Bulgaria St. St. Cyril and St. Methodius as a bibliographer. Since 2017, she’s been an archivist at the Department of Oriental Collections in the Specialized Reading Room № 1 Prof. Marin Drinov to the Department of Preservation of Manuscript and Documentary Heritage. Gabriela Angelova is an assistant professor at the Department of Library Studies at the ULSIT.
Her research interests are related to the private libraries of Bulgarian intellectuals and their preservation in an institutional environment, Bulgarian book printing history, rare editions, and old printed books.