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The paper discusses the diocesan structure of the Archbishopric of Ohrid as conveyed in the charters of the Byzantine emperor Basil II issued in 1019, 1020 and 1020-1025. It looks at the origin of each bishopric and traces its historical development during the First Bulgarian Empire in 864-971, the Byzantine reoccupation under John I Tzimiskes in 971-976, and Samuel’s Empire in 976-1018.

This paper discusses the use of the names of heresies: bogomilism, messalianism and the heresy of autoproscoptae in 14th century Bulgarian sources. The author underlines that the names of bogomilism and messalianism do not always refer to dualism. Two wider unknown examples of such use of the name “messalinism” are recalled. In the Pseudo-Zonaras Nomocanon (CIAI 1160), the name “messalianism” is treated as being equal to the “heresy of autoproscoptae”. In the Rule for hermits, messalians are presented not as heretics, but as monks disregarding their rules.

The article lists a number of cases of actual and possible application of the concept ‘borderline’ to characterise Bulgarian collective identity. Half of them date from the post-communist period and another half from the period between the two world wars. Through them I try to trace a theoretical intention that is sensitive to the teleology and ideology of modernisation (and especially to its Eurocentric bias). Thus I try to chart a set of self-identifications which could be opposed to what I consider the present mainstream in writing on collective identity issues in Bulgaria, to both its currents: the one claiming the status of avant-garde and the imperative of scholarly autonomy, and the other claiming classicality and compliance with national interests. I view mainly 20th–21st c. expert works in cultural and art history, of both Bulgarian Middle Ages and modernity, but also some works of ‘well-informed citizens’ (or of experts outside their domain of expertise) who have felt obliged to share their prophetic visions in public, and even memoirs. The article contains five chapters relating, correspondingly, to: (0) deliberation on the concept of borderlineness and its alternatives; (1) delineation of the conceptual tenets of the mainstream discourse of/on Bulgarian collective self-identification and self-instruction throughout the late 19th – early 21st centuries, and of what I believe are its major conceptual deficiencies (nation-centrism; Eurocentrism; cultural-historical monism; and linguo-centrism); (2) identification of late 20th – early 21st c. conceptualisations of Bulgarian identity which are relatively free from the above referred deficiencies and which recognise that identity’s ‘borderlineness’; (3) identification of similar conceptualisations from the interwar period (1920s– 1930s); (4) delineation of some epistemological assets of ‘borderline awareness’ and, esp., its compatibility with ‘understanding-culture-as-plural’, as well as of its fluctuation in scope and intensity within the Bulgarian 19th–21st c. An analogical, and, inevitably, more complicated, exploration of the mental geographies and implicit Kulturphilosophies in works of Bulgarian artistic literature could be the subject of a subsequent paper.

This paper analyses the torsioned bracelets, and the knitted bracelets, with plaques at the ends. The first part synthesizes the stage of the research in Romania. The catalogue of the discoveries, systematized on provinces, type of the findings, materials and techniques used for bracelets are the following parts. According to the execution techniques used for the bracelets, and to the shapes and ornaments of the plaques it was proposed a typology of the items for the present-day territory of Romania. The relative and absolute chronology of this type of bracelets is also discussed, taking into account the discoveries from Bulgaria and eastern Serbia, too. The bracelets were divided into torsioned items, and knitted items. The torsioned bracelets are divided in three main types and some sub-types. The typology of the knitted bracelets includes three types. Finally, the chronological and the diffusion areas were determined for the south-eastern Europe. Several diffusion areas of the torsioned bracelets could be defined. The first group (Dinogetia) was dated in the 10th – 11th centuries in Dobruja, with analogies in Bulgaria and the Russian territory. The next bracelet (Mihail Kogălniceanu) is characteristic to the eastern Balkans, and it is dated in the second half of the 13th century and the beginning of the following century. The third group includes the items found in Moldavia, in Oţeleni and Voineşti, dated in the second half of the 13th century. Another group is formed by the items from different regions of Romania (Transilvania, Dobruja, Moldavia), dated between the second half of the 13th century until the middle of the 14th century.(Păcuiul lui Soare, Amnaş, Voineşti). The bracelets from Basarabi, Jiana Mare and those found in Banat are the latest group, dated late 14th and perhaps early 15th century. Bracelets without direct analogies, such as Runcu (13th century) and Schela Cladovei (cca 1325– 1420) are also discussed. Bracelets made of knitted wires, less used, are concentrated in Oltenia, at Gogoşu (end 14th – early 15th century) and Şuşiţa (late 14th century), and only one found in Moldavia, at Voineşti (second half of the 13th century).