Nomination Form International Memory of the World Register

Revised nomination

Nomination form International Memory of the World Register

1.0 Checklist Nominees may find the following checklist useful before sending the nomination form to the International Memory of the World Secretariat. The information provided in italics on the form is there for guidance only and should be deleted once the sections have been completed.

 Summary completed (section 1)  Nomination and contact details completed (section 2)  Declaration of Authority signed and dated (section 2)  If this is a joint nomination, section 2 appropriately modified, and all Declarations of Authority obtained  Documentary heritage identified (sections 3.1 – 3.3)  History/provenance completed (section 3.4)  Bibliography completed (section 3.5)  Names, qualifications and contact details of up to three independent people or organizations recorded (section 3.6)  Details of owner completed (section 4.1)  Details of custodian – if different from owner – completed (section 4.2)  Details of legal status completed (section 4.3)  Details of accessibility completed (section 4.4)  Details of copyright status completed (section 4.5)  Evidence presented to support fulfilment of the criteria (section 5)  Additional information provided (section 6)  Details of consultation with stakeholders completed (section 7)  Assessment of risk completed (section 8)  Summary of Preservation and Access Management Plan completed. If there is no formal Plan attach details about current and/or planned access, storage and custody arrangements (section 9)  Any other information provided – if applicable (section 10)  Suitable reproduction quality photographs identified to illustrate the documentary heritage. (300dpi, jpg format, full-colour preferred).  Copyright permissions forms signed and attached. Agreement to propose item(s) for inclusion on the World Digital Library if inscribed

Nomination form International Memory of the World Register

THE GOSPELS OF TSAR IVAN ALEXANDER ID Code [2016-37]

1.0 Summary (max 200 words)

The Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander (1331–1371), also known as London Gospel/s, famous with its rich illumination, is regarded as a Bulgarian national treasure and is recognized as one of the treasures of the world known collections of the British Library. The royal portraits in the manuscript are a unique expression of the King’s political ideology, personal piety and patronage in arts. They make the manuscript an outstanding document not only of artistic achievement but of ideology in the realm of Byzantine civilization in the turbulent years before the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. The miniatures, which are the first known copies of those in the eleven-century Byzantine Gospels BnF cod. Paris. gr. 74, have inspired directly and indirectly a series of luxury copies commissioned by princely and ecclesiastical persons in Wallachia and Moldavia (present day Rumania). As a key element in transmitting of Byzantine legacy through the centuries and different countries, the Gospels are a rare witness of a process concerning the medieval and modern South European culture. The later history of the codex, brought from Mount Athos by Lord Robert Curzon and donated to the British Library by his heirs, focuses European cultural, political and religious values.

2.0 Nominator 2.1 Name of nominator (person or organization) St. St. Cyril and Methodius National Library – Bulgaria The British Library - UK

2.2 Relationship to the nominated documentary heritage St. St. Cyril and Methodius National Library is the leading nominator; the British Library is the owner of the document and is the second nominator.

2.3 Contact person(s) (to provide information on nomination) Prof. DSc. Boryana Hristova, Ass. Prof. Dr Elissaveta Moussakova; Dr Scot McKendrick 2.4 Contact details Name Address Boryana Hristova, Director, St. St. 88 Vasil Levski Blvd, 1037 Sofia, Bulgaria Cyril and Methodius National Library of Bulgaria

Elissaveta Moussakova, Archivist,

Manuscripts and Old Printed Books

Department, St. St. Cyril and Methodius National Library of Bulgaria Scot McKendrick, Head of 96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB, UK Western Heritage Collections, The British Library

Telephones Facsimile [email protected] ++ 359 2 9183 101 ++ 359 2 8435495 ++ 359 2 9881600; ++359 2 9183 165 [email protected] +44 (0)20 7412 7507 [email protected]

3.0 Identity and description of the documentary heritage 3.1 Name and identification details of the items being nominated If inscribed, the exact title and institution(s) to appear on the certificate should be given The Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander, Add. MS 39627, kept in the British Library, are written in Slavonic, with Cyrillic uncial script by the hand of monk Simeon in 1356. His extensive colophon is on ff. 274–275. Also known as the London Gospel/s, the codex contains the text of the Four Gospels, each preceded by a list of chapters. About 367 miniatures with gold ornate and executed by at least three leading painters, illustrate the text, opening it with the portrait of the Bulgarian royal family on ff. 2v–3r. Other portraits of Tsar Ivan Alexander with an image of the Evangelist are painted at the end of each Gospel on ff. 86v, 88v, 212v, and 272v, and also on f. 124r, where the King is represented among the righteous in the Garden of Eden. On f. 273v is a magic square (or labyrinth of letters) encoding the name of Tsar Ivan Alexander as owner of the book. A menology and a synaxaria have been added at the end in the fifteenth century. Before the original text, on f. 1r is a Table of miniatures by Henry Omont.

3.4 History/provenance The place of origin is uncertain even though Tarnovo, the capital of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom, is regarded as the most probable. Apparently taken into Moldavia after the Ottoman conquest and redeemed from pledge by Ivan Alexander, Voivode of Moldavia (to be identified with Alexander the Good, r. 1402–1432): Slavonic note (f. 5r): ‘The son of Voivode Stefan, Ivan Alexander, in Christ God faithful Voivode and ruler of the whole land of Moldavia, bought the Gospels which had been deposited in pledge. Let God have mercy upon him and grant him eternal life as well as long life here’ (Dimitrova 1994, p. 21). In the 17th century the manuscript was already in the monastery of St Paul, Mt Athos, Greece: inscription (f. 286v); presented to Robert Curzon in 1837. Robert Curzon (1810-1873), 14th Baron Zouche of Harringworth, traveller and collector of manuscripts, recorded that the manuscript was given to him: 'If you do not care what book it is that you are so good as to give me, let me take one which pleases me: and so saying I took down the illuminated folio of the Bulgarian gospels, and I could hardly believe I was awake when the agoumenos [superior of the monastery] gave it into my hands' (Robert Curzon, Visits to the Monasteries of the Levant, 2nd edn. (London: John Murray, 1849), p. 386). Robert Curzon, 15th Baron Zouche (1851-1914) deposited his father's collection of 218 manuscripts and 69 printed books on permanent loan to the British Museum in 1876. Bequeathed to the British Museum in 1917 by the 14th Baron's daughter, Darea, 16th Baroness Zouche (1860–1917).

4.0 Legal information 4.1 Owner of the documentary heritage (name and contact details) The British Library Address 96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB

Telephone Facsimile Email

4.2 Custodian of the documentary heritage (name and contact details if different from the owner)

The British Library Address 96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB

Telephone Facsimile Email

4.3 Legal status British Library Act 1972

The British Library Board was established under the British Library Act 1972 to manage the Library as “a national centre for reference, study, and bibliographic and other information services, in relation both to scientific and technological matters and to the humanities”. Please see the attached copy of the act or visit http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/governance/blact/index.html

Please also find attached our statement of public task or visit

http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/stratpolprog/pubsect-info- regulations/faq/bl_psi_public_task_statement.pdf

4.4 Accessibility The Gospels of Ivan Alexander are described in the British Library’s online catalogue ‘Explore Archives and Manuscripts’ at http://searcharchives.bl.uk/. The manuscript has been digitised in full and has been available online on the British Library’s website at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_39627&index=0 since 2012 when it was publicised on the Library’s successful Medieval Manuscripts blog http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2012/09/the-gospels- of-tsar- ivan- alexander.html. The manuscript is regularly displayed at the British Library, most recently in the Sir John Ritblat Treasures Gallery at the beginning of 2007, to mark the entry of Bulgaria into the European Union, and in 2012-13 to coincide with the publication of the full digital version of the manuscript by the British Library. It was also displayed later in 2007 in the British Library’s major temporary exhibition, ‘Sacred. Books of the Three Faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam’. The manuscript has been loaned for display at several major exhibitions in the UK, Europe and the United States since the 1970s, including: ‘Slavonic Manuscripts from the British Library’, Sofia, 1977; “The Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander”, Sofia, 1981; ‘Bulgaria: Tradition and Beauty’, Liverpool, 1989; ‘Byzantium: Treasures of Byzantine Art and Culture from British Collections’, London, 1994; ‘Tsar Ivan Alexander’, Sofia, 1996; ‘Byzantium: Faith and Power’, New York 2004; ‘Byzantium’, London, 2008.

All access restrictions should be explicitly stated below: In order to ensure the preservation of the Gospels of Ivan Alexander for the very long term, access to the original manuscript is restricted. These restrictions are similarly applied to other medieval manuscripts of comparable outstanding cultural and artistic value. However, scholars who are at an advanced stage of their research, who cannot answer their research questions from the full- 4

colour digital coverage of the manuscript, and who are able to demonstrate a compelling research need may consult the original manuscript in the British Library’s Manuscripts Reading Room by arrangement in advance.

4.5 Copyright status

5.0 Assessment against the selection criteria 5.1 Authenticity The Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander is original medieval manuscript, dating from 1356 The date is documented by the colophon of the scribe Simeon on ff. 274r–275r, the authenticity of whose hand is proved by paleographical analysis of the handwriting throughout the codex. Also, the codicological analysis confirms that the folios with the colophon are integral part of the manuscript body. The illumination is preserved in its genuine condition as the codex has not been subjected to modern restoration. However, a possibility remains that optical, photographic, instrumental or biotechnical analyses could detect some later “refreshments” of some miniatures, a not unusual practice encountered while researching medieval manuscripts. 5.2 World significance The miniatures in the royal manuscript, which are the first known copies of those in the Greek (Byzantine) Gospel BnF cod. Paris. gr. 74, written c. 1060 for the Abbot of the Monastery of Stoudios in Constantinople, inspired a series of luxury copies of the Gospel book commissioned by princely or ecclesiastical persons: MSS Suceviţa 23, written for the Wallahian ruler Alexander II Mircea (1568– 1577); Suceviţa 24, written for the Moldavian voivode Jeremiah Movila (1595–1606); the Elisavetgrad Gospels of the late 16th or early 17th century, now in Moscow, Russian State Library Muz. sobr. 9500; the Gospels copied by the order of the Metropolitan Anastasius Crimcovici and illuminated in 1617, now in Warsaw, National Library of Poland Akc. 10778. Even though the dependence of the Greek and Slavonic manuscripts on one another is not fully clarified, and the Tsar’s Gospel is not an immediate model for all the copies, it was instrumental in introducing the Byzantine model to the court culture of the 16th and 17th century Wallachian and Moldavian principalities. With regard to the Byzantine legacy, which is fundamental for the South-East European cultural development up to the early 20th century, this preserved sequence of manuscripts is an exceptional witness of the literary and artistic interrelations in the Byzantine Commonwealth (500–1453, see Dimitri Obolensky) and during the period of Byzance après Byzance (after Nicolae Jorga, with a broader meaning). Various reasons, including the artistic qualities of the Slavonic copies, has given to all them the status of national treasures. Therefore a possible disappearance of the medieval Bulgarian manuscript would mean losing the key element of a transcultural process in which a specific artistic idiom has been selectively adopted in different temporal, historical and ethnic contexts to serve not so much religious, as political purposes. Is the heritage unique and irreplaceable? Would its disappearance constitute and harmful impoverishment of the heritage of humanity? Has it created great impact over time and/or within a particular cultural area of the world? Has it had great influence (positive or negative) on the course of history?

5.3 Comparative criteria: 1 Time The 14th century political life of Bulgaria, Serbia and Byzantium was really a complicated affair. Hereditary pretentions and changes of dynastic rules, separate movements, inner and outer war conflicts, political manoeuvres involving religious and doctrinal quests characterise the situation in the 5

named countries, projected on the threat of advancing power of the Ottoman Empire and on the Hungarian expansion under King Louis the Great (Nagy Lajos). Ivan Alexander’s politics included diplomatic relations with the Serbian court and support for establishing the power of Stefan Dušan and his empire, successful battles against the Byzantines and enhancing the Bulgarian territory, taking side in a series of clashes during the civil wars in Byzantium. Nevertheless this time is also of jurisdictional and territorial fragmentation of the Kingdom, speeded by the King’s decision to designate his eldest son from his second marriage as a heir and to compensate the firstborn one, Ivan (Ioan) Sratsimir, with the royal power over the lands around Vidin. The dynastic conflicts generated by Ivan Alexander, his short-sided alliances with the Ottomans, and the territory shrinking of Tarnovo Kingdom, all these lead to ruination of his state. Ivan Alexander’s eldest son from the second marriage, Ivan (Ioan) Shishman (1371–1395), depicted in the London Gospels with the regalia of the legitimate heir to the crown, was the last ruler of Tarnovo, the capital of the state. In 1396 the remnants of Bulgarian Kingdom were eventually conquered by the Ottoman Empire. On f. 2v of the Tsar’s Gospel, among the members of the royal family is represented his daughter Kera Thamara, whom, after his attempts to stop the Turks failed, her brother Ivan Shishman reluctantly sent in 1378 in the harem of the Sultan in the Ottoman capital Bursa. She kept her Christian faith and in the King Boril’s Synodicon her fate was praised as self-sacrifice. Nevertheless, the time of Tsar Ivan Alexander is considered to be an unparalleled cultural flourishing of the medieval Bulgarian Kingdom. This period is marked by a thorough revision and new translations of liturgical and other texts on the basis of the Greek sources, regulation of orthography and mastering the literary style, both featuring the Tarnovo Literary School, remarkable building and artistic activities, all these patronised by the King. Therefore as a commission and possession of Ivan Alexander, the Tsar’s Gospel became for the modern generations a symbol of the last Golden Age of Bulgarian culture.

2 Place

3 People The relation rulers – Hesychasts in the Slavo-Byzantine 14th century is one of the most illustrative examples of collaboration between the lay power (Ivan Alexander in Bulgaria, King Stefan Dušan and Prince Lazar in the Serbian Kingdom, Emperor John (Ioan) VI Kantakouzenos in Byzantium) and a certain religious milieu, supporting a concrete theological trend. It resulted in the dominance of this circle in the Orthodox church, legitimised by church councils, which were held under the auspice of the rulers. The imposing of Hesychast doctrine was effectuated after the vehement theological disputes between the main opponents Gregory Palamas and Barlaam of Calabria. According to Archbishop Chrysostomos I of Cyprus “The Hesychastic controversy was the most significant theological dispute in the later Byzantine Empire. The political and social upheavals that resulted from the civil wars (1341– 1347) and succession struggles in the age of the Palaeologan dynasty were in one way or another, and to varying degrees, connected with this momentous controversy. At the same time, the theological issues which it brought to the forefront both helped to define and distinguish the peculiar traditions of the Orthodox East and to form the course of future dialogue with the Roman Catholic West.” And further: “Holy Tradition, the perpetuation of a theology drawn from common Christian experience, rather than philosophical speculation, and the very goals of spiritual life as the East saw them came into a direct conflict with the rationalistic, Hellenistic presuppositions of Western scholasticism and the ecclesiological and anthropological foundations of the theory of Papal primacy that Scholasticism … came to serve in Roman Catholicism.” (in Orthodox and Roman Catholic Relations from the Fourth Crusade to the Hesychastic Controversy (Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 2001), pp. 199‒200). The reign of Ivan Alexander is marked by his support of the Athonite Hesychast monks whose party started to make its way in the 14th century. The Palamite Hesychasm was recognised as the official doctrine of the East Orthodox Church at the Council in Constantinople in 1351, presided by Kantakouzenos. Ivan Alexander’s help to the Hesychasts is testified by the Vita of Theodosius of Tarnovo, describing the King’s generosity in fortifying the monastery of the famous Hesychast leader Gregory of Sinai in Paroria and in foundation of the monastery of Theodosios in the vicinity of the

capital city. The emphasis on the royal personality as a defender of Orthodoxy through specific iconographic formulae, combined with programme captions or appearing in meaningful textual surrounding in the three manuscripts of the King – his Psalter of 1337, the Chronicle of Manasses c. 1340–1350, and the Gospels – is highly suggestive for his political strategy carried on in accordance with the Hesychast ideas. In this respect a recent publication (Nina Gagova, Teofanichnoto videnie ot Tomichovija psaltir i osobenostite na isihastkata trinitarna koncepcija v edin tekst na Ioan Kantakuzin, in Nina Gagova, Vladeteli i knigi, Sofia, 2010, 108-129) is of particular importance in understanding of the relation between the Hesychast Trinitarian ideology and the monarchic principle. This relation depicts the Hesychasts (defenders of the inter-hypostatic difference) as the only guarantees of the respect to the imperial power. On his turn, as a “faithful in God” ruler Ivan Alexander convoked two anti-heretical councils in Tarnovo in 1350 and 1359/60. Ivan (Ioan) Shishman, the eldest son of the second marriage, is represented in the royal portrait on f. 3r in the manuscript as heir of the throne, thus manifesting the King’s violation of primogeniture principle. Considering the sources, many scholars refer to the King himself as usurper of the throne. The royal portraits in the Gospels as well as the other extant representations of Ivan Alexander reveal his endeavour to establish by visual appropriation of Byzantine iconographies his legitimacy in the eyes of both his subjects and rivals.

4 Subject and theme A religious book by its content, the London Gospels have been prepared, no doubt with the interference of the commissioner himself, as “a most impressive testament to Ivan Alexander’s ambitions, patronage, piety, and dynastic politics ...” (Elena Boeck). In the opening miniature on f. 3r, representing the celestial investiture of the King and his wife, the arrangement of figures and their titles proclaim a new order both in the family and in the kingdom. Reading the illumination of the Gospels through the indicative colophon of the scribe Simon, brings new meaning of all the decorative elements. Thus the change of style and colour scheme is not a simple aesthetical reaction of artists, belonging to a different epoch, but, together with certain semantic shifts in the iconography, they are means to construct a personal history, a political document, and a doctrinal manifest – in the latter the Hesychast ideology has been convincingly discerned (on this subject see Dimitrova). A subtle reference to the approaching disaster of the Ottoman invasion is made by the seemingly mechanical replacement of the abbot’s figure in the miniature of the Last Judgement by that of Ivan Alexander, addressing the Virgin, the most trustworthy intercessor of entire humankind before Christ. In a broader context however the scene might have been read by the contemporaries of the Gospel as a reference to the eschatological fears felt not only by the people in Byzantium and Slavic countries, but by people all over Europe in the 14th century. Themes related to death have become a true fashion in Late Byzantine as well as in the Balkan art, as testified by the unusual before that time spreading of compositions in miniature and fresco painting which depict the Last Judgement or ceremonies at the death bed of noble persons. Parallel to apocalyptic expectations is the current idea of personal salvation, whence the great interest to portraiture, in manuscripts and murals. A perfect example of this notion are the portraits of Ivan Alexander in his Gospel.

5 Form and style According to a scholarly view, the London Gospel is a copy, as far as the illumination is concerned, of a Byzantine Gospel, BnF cod. Paris. gr. 74, commissioned by the abbot (hegumen) of the Stoudios monastery in Constantinople in the 1060s. The Greek manuscript, comprising portraits of the donor at the same places as in the Bulgarian copy, is a representative of a very small group of manuscripts in which, together with an extensive illustrative cycles, a particular text-image composition has been adopted. The rarity of the type even among the most luxurious Byzantine Gospels makes the choice of Bulgarian king particularly significant. What is more, while the entire design of the Greek codex has been faithfully copied, certain changes in the iconography, the inclusion of the royal family’s group portrait with the celestial investiture of Ivan Alexander and his (second) wife, and his “communication” with the sacred persons of the Mother of God and the Evangelists, turned the illumination into a rather different visual message compared with that of the original. Parallel processes of cultural appropriations of the Byzantine past (history as well as art) are testified for the Serbian Kingdom in the same period, 7

hence the manifested ‘byzantinization’ of both cultures in the 14th century, as stated by various scholars. Its impact on art has lead to a radical change of the visual vocabulary, especially in the manuscript illumination. Also, for the first time in the history of South Slavs luxury commissions of books by/for rulers, aristocracy and highest ecclesiastical ranks are testified on such a scale. The sole representative though of a royal commission, in which new style and design not only have been applied but also “authorised” with portraits of a ruling family, is the Bulgarian Gospel Book. Considering the time of origin, which corresponds to the last great period in Byzantine art, known as Palaeologan era, the cycle of miniatures in the London Gospels is phenomenal – its completeness has a few rivals in the late Byzantine miniature, like the illustrated Romance of Alexander, kept in the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Postbyzantine Studies, Venice.

6 Social/ spiritual/ community significance: In Bulgarian modern historiography as well as in school textbooks, the London Gospels is the inevitable example of artistic mastership from Bulgarian Middle Ages and par excellence a document of the cultural politics of Ivan Alexander. The manuscript is regarded emblematic for the Bulgarian culture beyond the view point of the 14th century art achievements for which the King’s interests and financial support were essential. Its cultural, artistic and historical significance reaches over the national boundaries considering the fact that the codex has been recognised as a part of the Byzantine legacy – by Wallachian and Moldavian rulers in the late 16th – 17th century and by the European and American scholarship of the 19th – 21st centuries. As such, but also as an object, memorable of the 19th century political and hence antiquarian interests of the British Empire in the Balkans and the Near East, the book is one of the world known British Library’s treasures. For years the Gospels was on display among the celebrities of the British Museum in the permanent exhibition of its library department. Since the British Library moved to its own separate building in 1998, the Gospels have been displayed regularly in the Sir John Ritblat Treasures Gallery and in a number of temporary exhibitions, as set out in section 4.4 above.

6.0 Contextual information

6.1 Rarity The miniatures of the Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander are among the few examples to the end of the 14th century in which a particular design has been applied to illustrated copies of the Gospels. The group in view consists of MSS BnF Paris. gr. 74, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana Plut.VI.23 and the Bulgarian manuscript, in all which the images are displayed in rich narrative cycles. With regard to the Palaeologan age in Byzantine art, of which the London Gospels is contemporary, the great number of miniatures is a rare exception, while in the context of the last great epoch of South Slavonic art of illumination the manuscript is a unicum. 6.2 Integrity The manuscript is preserved in excellent condition, with one folio missing, between f. 74 and f. 75, bearing the text Matthew 25: 39–46, as stated in the very first publications of the document. Presumably, on this page is a miniature, representing the Last Judgement.