On 13 and 14 June 2014, the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the Institute for Bulgarian Language “Prof. Lyubomir Andreychin” hosted the international scientific conference “Modern dimensions of a scientific insight: 150 years since the birth of Vatroslav Oblak”.
The conference was dedicated to the 145th anniversary of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and was organised within the framework of the bilateral international project “Electronic model for comparative study of the Bulgarian and Slovenian language on dialect level”, funded by the National Science Fund.
Bulgarian linguistics owes a great deal to the Slovenian scholar Vatroslav Oblak, who was the first to conduct field research on the dialect of Thessaloniki and the surrounding region. His findings became fundamental for determining the nature of the Thessaloniki dialect and for clarifying the origins of the Bulgarian language. In his letters to his teacher Vatroslav Jagić, he enthusiastically remarked that “only a few remnants of the declensional system and a good imagination” would have sufficed for the language of Cyril and Methodius to be discovered in the dialect of Suho.
His now-classic works Macedonische Studien and Contribution to Bulgarian Grammar, indispensable references for all researchers of the Thessaloniki dialects and the other Bulgarian dialects of Macedonia, together with his broader scholarly output, decisively refuted the Pannonian Theory concerning the character of the Old Bulgarian language and demonstrated its Bulgarian origin. Oblak’s contribution to Slavic philology and the history of the Bulgarian language is widely recognised in scholarly literature. His memorial plaque bears an inscription in Old Bulgarian taken from his dissertation on the Apocalypse: „Достоинъ быстъ отъврсти кънигы“ (“He who was worthy to open the books”) – perhaps the most fitting epitaph for a life marked by intellectual integrity, purpose, and historical significance.
The scientific programme of the conference included more than 30 papers presented by Bulgarian and international scholars in the fields of the history of the Bulgarian and Slovenian languages, dialectology, onomastics, etymology, comparative linguistics, and related disciplines. The cultural programme included visits to historical and cultural landmarks.