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This thesis examines the presentation of palatalisation in four descriptions of Russian phonetics from the 19th century. It presents the modern phonetic and phonological view on palatalisation in Russian, with which the view presented in the examined 19th century works is compared. The thesis comes to the conclusion that the examined works provide a relatively modern phonetic description of palatalisation in Russian and, through their inability to properly analyse the role of palatalisation in the sound system, demonstrate the need for phonology as a study.

“The Goat Horn” – a Bulgarian Short Story between the Tale and the Legend

Nikolaj Chajtov (1919-2002) is one of the most popular contemporary writers in Bulgaria, but relatively unknown to the Swedish literary audience. Previously, only two short stories by him have been translated into Swedish. This article presents a Swedish translation of one of Chajtov’s most published short stories, “The Goat Horn”. It gives a short presentation of the author, an overview of the story’s publication history and discusses the difficulties and choices when translating it into Swedish.

“The Goat Horn” – a Bulgarian Short Story between the Tale and the Legend

Nikolaj Chajtov (1919-2002) is one of the most popular contemporary writers in Bulgaria, but relatively unknown to the Swedish literary audience. Previously, only two short stories by him have been translated into Swedish. This article presents a Swedish translation of one of Chajtov’s most published short stories, “The Goat Horn”. It gives a short presentation of the author, an overview of the story’s publication history and discusses the difficulties and choices when translating it into Swedish.

E-Learning Bulgarian at Uppsala University: A Survival Strategy or the Natural Habitat for Students of the 21st Century? 

Teaching Bulgarian at university level trough e-learning is still a novelty. However, from the fall semester of 2011, it will be the only alternative to study the subject in Sweden. The article presents the structure and the methodological principles behind the development of a sequence of courses in Bulgarian (from basic to advanced level) at Uppsala University. It is argued that the advantages of on-line teaching outweigh the disadvantages, and that e-learning involves the students in the process of learning to a much higher extent than traditional on-campus teaching. The new courses are presented from two different perspectives: the educator’s and the student’. Some experiences on working with the e-learning platform PingPong, and the conferencing program Abobe Connect Pro, are discussed.

An Unknown Study about a Well-known Swedish Slavist – Angel Nakoff’s Study about Alfred Jensen

Alfred Jensen (1859–1921) is a well-known name among Swedish scholars in the field of Slavic languages and literatures. His merits as the first introducer of various Slavic literatures – Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, Montenegrin, Russian, Slovene, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Ukrainian – and their cultures in Sweden are undisputable. He was also the first expert for all Slavic literatures, appointed by the Swedish Academy for writing appraisals for the Nobel Prize in literature.This article is an introduction to “Alfred Jensen” (a previously unpublished study) written by Angel Nakoff (1925–2010). The introduction presents some facts about Nakoff’s life and the study, which aims to give a holistic picture of Jensen’s literary work and translations. The study contains valuable information from people who knew Jensen or are related to him, and a selected two-page bibliography summarizing Jensen’s work in chronological order.

Från ”den slaviska litteraturen” till ”de slaviska litteraturerna” i Nobelprisets kontext (1901-1965)

Kopplingen mellan de slaviska litteraturerna och Nobelpriset har hittills behandlats antingen i samband med enskilda författare (framför allt de som fått Nobelpriset) eller utifrån en enda slavisk litteratur (rysk, polsk osv). En kartläggning av alla slaviska författare som nominerats under åren 1901-1965  kommer att ge en överblick dels över hur intresset för Nobelpriset utvecklats inom de slaviska litteraturerna, dels hur de slaviska litteraturerna bedömts i kontext av Nobelpriset. Utifrån ett litteraturhistoriskt perspektiv kan man särskilja tre olika etapper: 1) författarnas och deras verk jämförs inom ramen för ”den slaviska litteraturen”, 2) de slaviska litteraturerna och författare sätts in i ett europeiskt perspektiv; 3) litteraturerna bedöms inom ramen för världslitteraturen.

Four Men and a Woman – Swedish Interpretations of a Bulgarian Poet This article considers the work of the Bulgarian poet Elisaveta Bagrjana (1893–1991) and her reception in Sweden. Her work provides an example of how poetry can be received and interpreted differently over time within one and the same literary context (in this case Swedish). Bagrjana’s reception in Sweden covers a period of almost 30 years, from 1943, when she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, to 1970, when a selection of her poetry was translated into Swedish. Different interpretations by four Swedish men, Anton Karlgren, Józef Trypućko, Artur Lundkvist and Nils Åke Nilsson, all of whom were involved in various ways with the Nobel Prize in Literature, place Bagrjana’s poetical world between two opposite poles – ranging from a view of her poetry as limited by her personal life to an emphasis on its universal significance.

Penčo Slavejkov was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature in 1912. In Bulgaria he is considered the most successful of all Bulgarian writers nominated for the award. On the basis of two translated documents from the Swedish Academy’s Nobel Archive – the nomination letter and the expert’s appraisal, both written by Alfred Jensen – a persistent myth has been created with a recurring theme, namely Slavejkov’s unexpected, early death as the main reason for not being one of the laureates. The reconstruction of the events in 1912, based on all relevant documents in the archive, contradicts the previously accepted position. The article argues that the myth surrounding Slavejkov’s nomination is a result of an incorrect interpretation of the annual procedure for selecting a laureate and the inaccurate translation of the two previously published documents.

The first completely web-based course in introductory Bulgarian (“Bulgarienkunskap”) was developed and offered at Uppsala University during the spring term of 2008. This case study presents the contents of the course, which introduces the language through different topics related to Bulgaria and its culture, including traditions, society, history, sports, and music. The organization of the course was guided by the idea that transferring course material in its classical textual form online does not make the course particularly attractive. The paper describes the advantages of a “virtual classroom”, provided by the e-learning platform PingPong and the web-conferencing system Marratech, and briefly discusses on-line teaching experiences.

Overcoming borders – web based Bulgarian as a global solution“Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them”Albert EinsteinWeb based language teaching is no longer a novelty as it was in 2008, when I presented the first course in Bulgarian at Uppsala University (Bulgarian Studies) at the 8th Joint Bulgarian-American Conference in Varna. However, web-based Bulgarian at the university level is still a rarity today. At the same time, as of 2012 this type of language instruction is the only available for students in Sweden, as well as in Scandinavia, who wish to study the Bulgarian language, the literature and the culture. The disappearance of Bulgarian on the map of higher education is of relevance not only in Northern Europe. Rather, it is a slow, but inevitable destination for most universities, except those located in a Slavic country. One way to overcome the downward path of Bulgarian studies at the university level will be to move toward collaborative solutions.The article aims to present the web-based courses in Bulgarian (from basic to advanced level) taught in Swedish at Uppsala University, as well as a sequence of three basic courses, developed for teaching in English. It will be argued that web-based courses can be easily adopted and adapted for different educational purposes, systems and levels of mastery. It will also be argued that technology becomes a secondary issue in a more sober and realistic approach toward overcoming obstacles for Bulgarian studies in a global perspective. Thus, web-based Bulgarian at the university level could become the highway, rather than a local destination, if we start to collaborate beyond (our universities’) borders.

In linguistics, the difference between spoken and written language is often interpreted in terms of frequency, meaning the extent of the likelihood that some constructions will occur in written texts, rather than in the spoken form of a language, or vice versa. For Bulgarian, frequency analyses for particular constructions are still rare and the term “frequency” generally remains implicit to the written or the spoken form of the language. In this paper it is argued that the term “frequency” can be meaningful only if it is grounded in an analysis of both written and spoken texts. The primary focus of the study is the frequency of verbs, nouns and prepositional phrases in different types of spoken and written samples. Since neither the written nor the spoken form of Bulgarian, or, indeed, of any language, can be considered homogeneous, it is argued that the differences between spoken and written language can be viewed as differences between dialogue and non-dialogue: i.e., that it is not the mode itself, but rather the structuring of information and its density, which constitutes the difference between the spoken and written modes.

The Virtual Classroom – a Reason for Nostalgia or an Opportunity for Development? Bulgarian Studies at Uppsala University

The article presents the current state of the program in Bulgarian at Uppsala University, Sweden. It traces the development of the discipline for more than a century, back to the first Bulgarian language course in 1892, offered in the traditional classroom to the transformation of all courses in the virtual classroom. By comparing the opportunities of the traditional classroom with those of the virtual classroom, it becomes clear that the virtual classroom leads to a quantitative and qualitative development of the discipline. However, the advantages it offers for students cannot compensate for the loss of the scholarly community. Thus, the article argues that the virtual classroom is both an opportunity for development as well as a reason for nostalgia.

Abstract: A Literary Expedition: Swedish Students as Explorers of Bulgarian Literature