Abstract:

The present study aims at tracing the path of bibliographicаl data referring to a book important for the Bulgarian, and Slavic in general, literary tradition. The research provides a detailed analysis of sources and bibliography and a retrospect of the traces left by a mysterious book.

Тhe discovery of a copy of this significant book will be a contribution for the Cyrillic literary publishing and the Slavic bibliographical tradition as a whole.

According to the Bulgarian National bibliography, 45 Bulgarian books were printed in Budapest during the Bulgarian Literary Revival between 1801-1877. One of them is the subject of this study.

According to the Bulgarian bibliography the first printed book in modern Bulgarian language is "Nedelnik" (A Sunday book), issued in Rimnik, Romania in 1806 by Sofronius Bishop of Vratsa. But many representatives of this period mention another book printed in the same year in Buda - the prayer book “Molitveniy krin” (Prayer Lilium or Prayer Flower). It was described in the first Bulgarian bibliography by Ivan Shopov (1852) and after this it has been quoted by other bibliographers such as K. Irechek (1872), A. Teodorov-Balan (1909), V. Pogorelov (1923), M. Stoyanov (1957) and N. Teodosiev (2007), but no copy of the book has ever been found.

A significant part of this study is based on quantitative and observational methods - online bibliographical databases and library depositories, describing the routes of the mysterious book, have been used.

In a study by one of the leading Russian scientists and bibliographers Izmail Sreznevsky, "Essay on Printing in Bulgaria” (1846), he argues that the first book in modern Bulgarian language is the “Molitveniy krin” (Buda, 1806, in-12) and not the "Nedelnik" (1806), which was publish a few months later. Only Sreznevsky has worked de visu with the book, because he cites passages from it in his "Essay on Printing in Bulgaria” (1846). It is further quoted in the repertoires of Shopov, Balan, Pogorelov, Stoyanov, but in fact they have not seen it.
If this important for Bulgaria book was found, that would reverse many previous theories - the main periodization and fundamental bibliographical approaches to the Bulgarian book and Slavic (Cyrillic) publishing in general.

The proposed case study and the work on it will outline the overall strategy rеlated to different educational experiences:
- working with electronic catalogues;
- bibliographical tools;
- teamwork;
- geographical-information system, showing online bibliographical routes of books (the bibliographic routes of the book will be displayed with the geographical information system).

This on the other hand will give a new focus on bibliography and cultural history in the educational process.
In addition to the Bulgarian context, this paper refers to the organization of books publishing in general, not only in bibliographical, but in geographical aspect.

Keywords:

Bibliography, Cyrillic, mysterious, education, online, publishing.