"This book is a translation of ... Skazanie na Isaiah proroka i formiraneto na politicheskata ideologija na rannosrednovekovna Bulgaria (=Tale of the prophet Isaiah and the formation of the political ideology of early medieval Bulgaria) ... published in 2011 in Sofia"--Preface.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 279-296) and index.

Front Matter -- Introduction -- The Text of the Literary Work and Its Manuscript Tradition -- Tale of the Prophet Isaiah in the Context of Mediaeval Literature and Modern Researches -- The Chosen People and the Promised Land -- The Divinely Chosen King, Humble to God: Tsar Izot, or Davidic Royalty -- The Renovator King: Tsar Ispor and the Mosaic Royalty: Constantine and the Royalty of the Ruler-Converter to Christianity -- Kings and Their Names -- Conclusion -- The List of Names of the Bulgar Princes: Between Myth and History -- The Birth of the Founding Kings -- The Tabernacle of the Empire or the State-Church -- Bibliography -- Index.

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In The Tale of the Prophet Isaiah. The Destiny and Meanings of an Apocryphal Text Ivan Biliarsky proposes an edition of the original text of the medieval apocryphon, together with images of the single manuscript copy. The author also includes a large commentary on the otherwise quite unclear narrative concerning its origins, its development, a prosopography of the mentioned persons, an interpretation of its meaning and of the stages of its continuous creation. This completely new approach profoundly revises the source with a strong focus on its biblical roots. Ivan Biliarsky abandons the “national” understanding of the apocryphon and introduces evidence about its significance for the enforcement of the Byzantine-Slavic/Bulgarian Commonwealth and solidarity.