In the 18th century the rest of Europe was already on the threshold of the modern world. Bulgaria, unfortunately, did not have the opportunity to develop those first intimations of the Renaissance that can be seen in certain art or literary works of the 14lh century. Political enslavement was aggravated by religious oppression: the Bulgarian Patriarchate was abolished and the Bulgarian Church brought under authority of the Greek Patriarchate.
Moreover, the national consolidation had to take place in the absence of a Bulgarian State — which could have facilitated the process with its organizations.
That is why the Bulgarians and the other Balkan Christians under Turkish domination sought to overthrow the Ottoman bondage and establish their own national states.
Mount Athos
In 1762 the monk Paisiy of the monastery on Mount Athos wrote his Slav-Bulgarian History and in the following decades many copies of the manuscript started circulating to achieve wide distribution of the patriotic and anti-Greek ideas of its author. The work was first printed in 1844. From 1835 onwards began to be established outside the monasteries schools teaching in the Bulgarian language. In all larger towns sprang up “reading rooms” which made a powerful contribution to the development of national consciousness and to the diffusion of the national culture. Meanwhile, the 18th century was marked by a decay of the Turkish military and feudal system. Gradually, the Bulgarian lands became a Field for the economic activities of many foreigners and this implied even closer economic links with the Western states Tours Bulgaria. The rapid economic development created the material prerequisites for the rise of the Bulgarian national liberation movement.
So the remarkable work of the monk of Mount Athos served its historical purpose: to become the first national program for political and spiritual emancipation of the Bulgarians. In 1806 he created a collection of festive precepts called A Sabbath Book and this was the first Bulgarian printed book. The idea that a modern Bulgarian school should be set up was first conceived by Petar Beron who acquired his thorough college education in Heidelberg and Munich. In 1824 was published his famous Fish Primer regarded by historians as the actual beginning of the new Bulgarian education. The struggle for the establishment of the popular Bulgarian idiom as the language of education, divine service and literature continued. In 1844 the first Bulgarian magazine Lyuboslovie w’as published by Konstantin Fotinov in Smyrna (present-day Izmir in Asia Minor) and two years later, in Leipzig, Ivan Bogorov leafed through the pages of the first Bulgarian newspaper Bulgarski orel (Bulgarian Eagle).
Lilyana Andonova 