“A Small Bulgarian Grammar” presented at Croatian Academy of Sciences in Zagreb

“A Small Bulgarian Grammar” was presented at the library of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (HAZU).

The authors of the handbook are Prof. Dr. Ana Vasung, lecturer at the Department of Bulgarian Language and Literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Zagreb, and Dr. Evelina Grozdanova, lecturer in Bulgarian at the University of Zagreb and Associate Professor at the Department of Slavic Studies of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Plovdiv.

Opening remarks were delivered by HAZU President Academician Velimir Neidhardt, Bulgaria’s Ambassador to Croatia Iva Krouleva, and Branko Roglić, President of the Bulgarian-Croatian Business Club.

Academician Neidhardt recalled the historical ties between the founder of the Croatian Academy, Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer, and the Bulgarian people. In 1861, at his own expense, Strossmayer published in Zagreb the Bulgarian Folk Songs collected by the Miladinov brothers. In Sofia, a street and a bust also bear his name. He further noted that several founders of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences were corresponding members of the Croatian Academy. Neidhardt also expressed gratitude to the Bulgarian government, which in 2020 donated €50,000 as initial assistance for the restoration of HAZU buildings damaged by two strong earthquakes in Croatia.

The “Small Bulgarian Grammar” was presented by reviewer Assoc. Prof. Dr. Iva Nazalevic Chucevic and co-author Ana Vasung. They emphasized that the grammar aims to make the Bulgarian language more accessible by highlighting both similarities and differences in relation to Croatian.

The publication is the first grammatical reference providing an in-depth description of contemporary Bulgarian in Croatian, and represents a significant new contribution to Slavic linguistics. “A Small Bulgarian Grammar” is intended for students studying Bulgarian or taking it as an elective, as well as for students in related disciplines such as Croatian studies, linguistics, phonetics, and other Slavic languages. It facilitates the practical learning and use of Bulgarian while strengthening cultural, economic, and diplomatic ties between Croatia and Bulgaria.

The presentation was attended by Yosip Nalis, Chairman of the National Community of Bulgarians in Croatia; Rashko Ivanov, Vice-Chairman of the organization; Pero Diankov, representative of the Bulgarian national minority in the Zagreb City Council; Croatian intellectuals, researchers, historians, university lecturers from Zagreb University, as well as Bulgarians living and working in Zagreb, BTA reports.

Edited by Ivo Ivanov