Tarnovo Literary School - Representatives

Representatives

The main representatives include:

• Evtimiy of Tarnovo - a disciple of Theodosius of Tarnovo. He was a creator and head of the Tarnovo Literary School, as well as a teacher. He was author of passionals, praising epistles, breves and others. Except for his reform, Evtimiy introduced a new genre in the Orthodox literature which included features of both passionals and praising epistles.
• Grigoriy Dobropisets - a disciple of Theodosius of Tarnovo, author of the passional of the Bulgarian saint Romil of Vidin.
• Dionisiy Divniy - a disciple of Theodosius of Tarnovo. He was famous for translating books from Greek to Bulgarian and thus won his nickname Divni, meaning marvelous.
• Cyprian - a disciple of Theodosius of Tarnovo. Author of passionals, hymns and other works and translator.
• Gregory Tsamblak - a disciple of Evtimiy. With his work in Visoki Dečani, Moldavia and the Russian principalities, he spread the ideas of his teacher and the influence of the Tarnovo Literary School. He was author of numerous works including Praising epistle for Evtimiy which contains valuable data for the Patriarch and the Bulgarian history and Book of Gregory Tsamblak which is the only collection with works of a Slavic writer from that time.
• Constantine of Kostenets - a disciple of Andrey who was a direct follower of Evtimiy. He lived and worked in the court of the Serbian despot Stefan Lazarević. He established in the Pomoravie region the Resava Literary School.
• Joasaph of Bdin - the teacher of the bishop of Vidin was unknown but his work Praising epistle for the movement of St Philotea relics from Tarnovo to Vidin contained all features of the Tarnovo Literary School. The author demonstrated great respect to Evtimiy of Tarnovo.
• Vladislav the Grammarian - a late representative. He was a translator, compilator, transcriber and calligrapher. His only known author work is Rila novellete which is a sequel to Passional of St John of Rila by Evtimiy. The work contains important date for the reestablishment of the Rila Monastery in the second half of the 15th century and the transfer of the relics of St John of Rila in the monastery in 1469.
• Dimitar Kantakuzin - a late representative. He was a descendant of the Kantakouzenos family. He wrote in Bulgarian and Greek language. Kantakuzin was author of many works such as Passional and short praising of John of Rila, Geographic description, Epistle to domestikos Isay, poetic works with Christian theme.