Anonymous Bulgarian Chronicle is a term used for several

anonymous Anonymous may refer to: * Anonymity, the state of an individual's identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown ** Anonymous work, a work of art or literature that has an unnamed or unknown creator or author * Anonym ...

chronicle A chronicle (, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events ...

s written in

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

during the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

11th/12th centuries

The term is used when referring to an

apocryphal Apocrypha () are biblical or related writings not forming part of the accepted canon of scripture, some of which might be of doubtful authorship or authenticity. In Christianity, the word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to ...

apocalyptic chronicle written in Bulgaria in the late eleventh or early twelfth century.Antoanetta Granberg

nbsp;, SLAVICA HELSINGIENSIA 35, 2008 This work is also known as the "apocryphal Bulgarian chronicle".Anonymous classics: a list of uniform headings for European literatures
Second edition revised by the Working group set up by the IFLA Standing Committee of the Section on Cataloguing Such chronicles were relatively common in Bulgaria and

Byzantium Byzantium () or Byzantion () was an ancient Greek city in classical antiquity that became known as Constantinople in late antiquity and Istanbul today. The Greek name ''Byzantion'' and its Latinization ''Byzantium'' continued to be used as a n ...

of that period, and their defining characteristic was that they purported to come from a

prophet In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divinity, divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings ...

, delivering God's message and announcing that the Apocalypse is near.

15th century

Several sources refer to an early 15th-century work of that name. According to Khristov this work is focused on the

Ottoman invasion of the Balkans A series of military conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and various European states took place from the Late Middle Ages up through the early 20th century. The earliest conflicts began during the Byzantine–Ottoman wars, waged in Anatolia i ...

. Imber, however, is more critical of its coverage of that time period. According to him that work provides a narrative from 1296 to the death of Sultan

Bayezid I Bayezid I (; ), also known as Bayezid the Thunderbolt (; ; – 8 March 1403), was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1389 to 1402. He adopted the title of ''Sultan-i Rûm'', ''Rûm'' being the Arabic name for the Eastern Roman Empire. In 139 ...

in 1403 and only has a few brief and rather inaccurate entries focusing on the Ottoman civil war. This work has been identified it as one of the two important Slavonic literary histories for that time and place. Due to the relatively undescriptive name, it is possible that Khristov and Imber discuss two different works. Göyünç, Kreiser and Neumann discuss the work of that name noting that it reaches the year 1417 and that has been "identified as an Old-Bulgarian translation of the Byzantine chronicle of

John Chortasmenos John Chortasmenos (; – before June 1439) was a Byzantine monk and bishop of Selymbria, who was a distinguished bibliophile, writer, and teacher. Life Chortasmenos is first attested as a notary of the patriarchal chancery in 1391. He continued ...

. Another work uses this term to refer to a chronicle covering years 1296–1413. For the reasons mentioned above, it is not certain whether the scholars in question are discussing a single chronicle, ending in the early 15th century, or several different ones.

References

{{reflist South Slavic chronicles Anonymous works Medieval Bulgarian literature Middle Bulgarian language Historiography of Bulgaria

11th/12th centuries

15th century

See also

References