Team
Darina Boykina, PhD

Assistant Professor
Institute of Art Studies,
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
project coordinator

dboykina@gmail.com
https://bas.academia.edu/DarinaBoykina
ORCID: 0000-0002-6100-4676

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Darina Boykina is a researcher in the scientific group Medieval and National Revival Art in the Fine Arts Department of the Institute of Art Studies in the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. She obtained her MA degree in art history at the National Academy of Arts in 2016 and defended her PhD thesis, Reliquaries in Bulgaria from the Late Medieval and National Revival Periods, in 2019. Since 2020, she has been an assistant professor at the Institute of Art Studies.

Her research interests are in the field of ecclesiastical applied arts and material culture from the 15th–19th century period in Bulgaria and the Balkans. She specialises in the study of liturgical objects and silversmithing, the history and development of silversmithing centres in Bulgaria during the period of Ottoman rule. She published studies discussing the functional and artistic features of the reliquaries and taxidiotic boxes and their role in the religious life of the Christians, the veneration of the relics of saints, and the shaping of local cults of the saint. She has participated in national and international scientific conferences. Since 2017, she has been working on research projects dedicated to Orthodox art in Bulgaria. She has received scientific awards for a young scientist, among which is the prestigious prize of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Ivan Evstratiev Geshov in the field of Cultural Heritage and National Identity for 2019. She is a co-founder of the Society for Study of Decorative Arts and Silversmithing in Belgrade.

Nona Petkova, PhD

Assistant Professor
Institute of Art Studies,
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

nonapetkova@gmail.com
ORCID: 0009-0007-5967-8333

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Nona Petkova is a research scientist in the Medieval and National Revival Art Research Group, Fine Arts Department of the Institute of Art Studies. She obtained her MA degree in Art History with a specialization in Medieval Art and Culture at the New Bulgarian University, Sofia. In 2020, she defended her PhD thesis Treasury Gospel Bindings from Bulgarian Lands (16th– first half of 18th c.) at the Institute of Art Studies. She was granted École française d’Athènes scholarships (April 2008, August 2009). She has been an archivist at the Manuscripts and Old Printed Books Department of St Cyril and St Methodius National Library in Sofia (2012–2019), as well as a coordinator of the donation program Adopt a Book (2017–2019). Since 2022, she has been a guest lecturer at New Bulgarian University.

Nona Petkova works in the field of the Orthodox art and church silver with a focus on the sacred vessels, silversmithing workshops and centres. Her research interests also include the artistic and cultural exchanges in the Balkans during the Ottoman period. Another area of her research is the manuscript culture of this period in relation to the decoration and binding of the codices, as well as the analysis of paper (filigranology).

Vuk Dautović, PhD

Research associate
University of Belgrade – Faculty of Philosophy
Department of History of Art

vukdau@gmail.com
https://bg.academia.edu/VukDautovi%C4%87
ORCID: 0000-0002-2528-878X

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Vuk Dautović is a research associate at the Department of History of Art of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. He received his BA, M.A., and Ph.D. from the University of Belgrade. His doctoral thesis was entitled Art and Liturgical Ritual: Ecclesiastical Objects in Serbian Visual Culture of the 19th Century. In 2017, he received a scholarship from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). 

His field of research includes the material culture of the early modern period and the visual culture of Southeast Europe. Vuk Dautović’s area of expertise is ecclesiastical art, especially liturgical objects and church utensils. His research revolves around various phenomena related to objects of applied art in the service of rites and ceremonies, from performativity to their function in the transmission of cultural models and ideas, including the interactive participation of material objects in cultural dialogues within societies. He is specialising in the history of Serbian silversmithing. Another area of his research is the study of Jewish visual culture and history in the Balkans and the various manifestations of Sephardic Jewish visual culture. Vuk Dautović has published numerous works and studies on church treasuries, liturgical silver and related phenomena and has participated in numerous international scientific conferences. In 2017, he was awarded the Order Caballero Del Ladino in the Name of the Fifth President of the State of Israel, Don Yitzhak Rachamim Navon at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. He is the founder and president of the Society for the Study of Decorative Arts and Silversmithing, based in Belgrade, Serbia.

Mateja Jerman, PhD

Senior expert consultant-conservator
Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia

Scientific associate
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences,
University of Rijeka, Republic of Croatia

mateja.jerman.ri@gmail.com
https://uniri.academia.edu/MatejaJerman
ORCID: 0000-0003-3980-5079

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Mateja Jerman graduated in 2010 from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Rijeka, with a major in art history and history. She received a doctorate in Art History from the University of Zadar in 2020 under the supervision of Damir Tulić, PhD. Her thesis was titled Liturgical Objects Made of Precious Metals from 1400 to 1800 in the Former Pula Diocese. Since 2012, she has been a scientific associate in the projects of the Early Modern Art Section at the Department of Art History of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Rijeka. Since 2017, she has worked as a senior expert consultant-conservator for immovable and movable cultural heritage at the Conservation Department in Rijeka, which is part of the Directorate for the Protection of Cultural Heritage at the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia. She was the winner of the École française de Rome scholarship in 2019.

Her area of expertise is in the applied arts, with a specific focus on goldsmithing during the early modern period. Her special focus is on works created in Venice and the artistic centres of the Holy Roman Empire, considering the cultural circles that dominated the eastern coast of the Adriatic. She presents her research at both international and domestic scholar conferences and publishes papers in conference proceedings and specialised journals. She is a co-founder of the Society for Study of Decorative Arts and Silversmithing (Belgrade), an international group of art historians researching goldsmithing.

Tereza Bacheva, PhD

Assistant Professor
Institute of Art Studies,
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

tereza.bacheva@gmail.com
https://artstudies.academia.edu/TerezaBacheva

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Tereza Bacheva is a researcher in the research group Medieval and National Revival Art, Fine Arts department at the Institute of Art Studies. She obtained her MA οf Bulgarian philology at the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ochridski”; PhD at the Institute of Art Studies – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the thesis entitled Roman Popes in the Mural Painting Programs of the Churches of the Bulgarian Lands (15th 18th c.).

Her research interests are in the field of monumental art from the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine period and the artistic correlations between East and West. More specifically, her scientific researches are focused on the representations of the Roman saints in the Orthodox art, iconography, transformations of imagery, sustainable artistic models, etc.

Vesselina Yontcheva, PhD

Assistant Professor
Institute of Art Studies,
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Chief Specialist
National Institute for Immovable Cultural Heritage,
Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Bulgaria

vesselina.yontcheva@gmail.com
https://bas.academia.edu/VesselinaYoncheva

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Vesselina Yoncheva is a researcher in the research group Medieval and National Revival Art, Fine Arts department at the Institute of Art Studies. She received her master’s degree from the National Academy of Art, and her PhD from the Institute of Art Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Her doctoral thesis was entitled Paintings in The Temples Built from The Liberation of Bulgaria to 1941 on The Territory of Contemporary Sofia. From 2011 till now she is working as an art historian, Chief Specialist in the National Institute for Immovable Cultural Heritage, Ministry of Culture.

Her main field of research is the Orthodox art in Bulgaria after 1878.

Simeon Tonchev

PhD Student
Institute of Art Studies,
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

sim.tonch@gmail.com
https://independent.academia.edu/SimeonTonchev

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Simeon Tonchev is an art historian and historian. Graduated Art History in 2018 and MA in Art History and Cultural Heritage in 2020 at the National Academy of Arts, Sofia. He studied History of Bulgaria during the National Revival Period (18th–19th century) at the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”.

His research interests are in the fields of Christian art, the art and culture during the Bulgarian National Revival, the artistic processes and centres of that time. Author of publications about Orthodox art from the 19th century in the Region of Central Southern Bulgaria. In his PhD thesis developed at the Institute of Art Studies, he studies the drawing collections of 18th–19th century Bulgarian icon painters.

Member of the Bulgarian research team of the international project Visual Culture, Piety and Propaganda: Transfer and Reception of Russian Religious Art in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean (16th – early 20th century).