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Little-known "History of Bulgaria" by Blasius Kleiner is back on the book market

Photo: Archive

For the first time the book of the Franciscan monk Blasius Kleiner, dedicated to the Bulgarian history, was published in Bulgaria in 1977. The monk's manuscript had spent a long time in oblivion in the archives of the Franciscans in Budapest. It was discovered and translated into Bulgarian by Karol Telbizov and edited by Acad. Ivan Duychev.

The monk is believed to be a descendant of the Saxons (the German-speaking population of Transylvania) and worked in the monastery in the town of Alwinz (present-day Vintu de Jos, Romania) where he wrote the volume in 1761.

His work "History of Bulgaria" covers the period from the beginning of the Bulgarian statehood to the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453. In his story account the author relies on a wide range of sources available in his time, which he examines critically and thoroughly.

Few people know that the work describing Bulgaria's past was composed a year before the appearance of "Slav-Bulgarian History" by Paisius of Hilendar, known to every Bulgarian.



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