ARCS Bids Farewell to the 2014-15 Group of Fellows and Wishes them Good Luck in their Future Research

11 May 2015

It is almost that time of the year when the 2014-2015 academic cycle of the American Research Center in Sofia is about to end. The current fellows of the Center are getting ready to go back to their places of origin and to bring knowledge and impressions from their experience as participants in the different fellowship programs of the American Research Center in Sofia.

Over the past academic year the Center hosted an excellent group of International students: 7 Pre-Doctoral Fellows, 6 Residential SE European Fellows and 1 post-doctoral fellow in the Humanities. Their topics and interests reflected a wide range of issues in the humanistic research in Bulgaria and the Balkans.

More specifically, the pre-doctoral fellows were: Vladimir Troyansky from Stanford University who was researching "Integration and Resistance: North Caucasus Refugees in the Ottoman Balkans, 1860-1878." The second pre-doctoral fellow Dragos Nastasoiu from the Central European University was focused on the topic "Between East and West: The Iconography of Donors in Orthodox Mural Painting of Southern Transylvania during the Fifteenth Century." Our third pre-doctoral fellow Eli Weaverdyck from the University of California, Berkeley, investigated "Isolation or Integration? A spatial-analytic approach to the local impact of the Roman army on the northern frontier." The fourth pre-doctoral fellow, Victor Petrov from Columbia University, researched  "A Cyber-Socialism at Home and Abroad: Bulgarian Modernisation, Computers, and the World 1967-1989." The fifth fellow, Francesco La Rocca from the Central European University, studied "Bards, Faith and Power: How National Epics, Religions and Nation-Building Process Joined in Interwar Yugoslavia and Albania." Mark Reed from the University of Edinburgh researched "The Role of the Urbes Thraciae, from Diocletian to Maurice (284 – 602)." Mikhail Rekun from the Northeastern University investigated "Empire Unguided: Public Opinion and Imperial Foreign Policy in Balkans, 1876-1886."

The Residential SE European Fellows of ARCS in this current year were Gergana Georgieva, Ioana Crețulescu, Konstantin Golev, Manuela Marin, Ivalin Masheva  andAtanaska Stancheva. Gergana Georgieva is from the University of Veliko Tarnovo and the title of her historical study was "Social and Economic Profile of a Balkan Region in the Middle of the 19th Century." Ioana Crețulescu, an independent researcher in Archaeology, investigated "The Roman Painted Tomb on the Lower Danube. Crossover from Paganism to Christianity in Funerary Symbolism." Konstantin Golev is from Sofia University and researched "Echoes of the War: Oral History from Bulgarian WWII Veterans." Manuela Marin from West University of Timisoara investigated the topic "Islam in Communist Romania and Bulgaria. A Comparative Perspective." Ivalin Masheva studied the topic "From Islamic to Western Commercial Law. Changing Legal Environment and Christian Merchants in Ottoman Bulgaria (1840s-1870s)." Atanaska Stancheva from the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies, BAS, examined the topic "Ecological Movements in Post-socialist Bulgaria. Cultural Practices and Civil Activity.”

Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Pavel Murdzhev, a scholar from Santa Fe College (Gainesville, Florida) and a specialist in Byzantine Studies, worked on the topic "The Plow in Byzantine Agriculture: Institutional Failure or Economic Sagacity?”

During the academic year the students participated in walking tours in Sofia to museums and historical sites, academic excursions in Bulgaria during which the ARCS Fellows had the opportunity to visit many important historic and archaeological sites, including museums, in northern Bulgaria. Among the places and towns explored were Pleven, Ruse, Ivanovo, Cherven, Abritus, Shumen, Varna, Aladzha monastery, and Marcianopolis. Each fellow had to deliver a site presentation followed by lively discussions. Among the multiple seminars and other activities, the fellows had to attend lectures in the Center delivered by prominent Bulgarian and International Scholars. Additionally, each of the students presented his own lecture and final report on his work in front of their colleagues and an audience from the academic world in Bulgaria.

One of the most successful ARCS events in the spring of 2015 was a conference organized by ARCS Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Pavel Murdzev. The title of the conference was Town and Country in the Byzantine World: Social and Economic Perspectives. It was held on May 7-8, 2015 in ARCS' lecture hall. The conference was well attended internationally and the keynote address was delivered by Prof. Florin Curta from the University of Florida.

Additionally, as an ARCS tradition, ARCS' management organized dinners and gatherings with the current group of fellows in order to become more familiar with their studies and perspectives on the fellowship and on Bulgaria. Last but not least, a core group of the current ARCS fellows participated in the organization and celebration of ARCS' 10th anniversary on April 24, 2015 at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia.

The ARCS leadership and staff would like to express their enthusiasm about the wonderful group of young scholars who participated in the 2014-15 academic program of the Center and to thank them for their diligence, active approach and professionalism. By participating in our academic program, the 2014-15 fellows contributed for the further development of the Center in fulfillment of its mission to serve as a bridge between the Western and Eastern scholars and academic worlds.