On 19th and 20th June 2019, a Bulgarian-Romanian scientific conference "Southeast Europe through centuries: social history, language and cultural contacts" was held at the Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Thracology (IBSCT). The scientific forum dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences was organized in cooperation with the Institute for South East European Studies and the Nicolae Iorga Institute of History at the Romanian Academy
Prof. Joanna Spassova-Dikova, PhD, Scientific Secretary of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in the field of Cultural-Historical Heritage and National Identity, Prof. Roumiana Preshlenova, PhD, Director of the IBCT, and His Excellency Ion Gâlea, Ambassador of Romania to Bulgaria gave welcoming speeches and greeting addresses to the participants in which they pointed out the role of Bulgarian-Romanian scientific cooperation. Its traditions date back to 1869, when the Bulgarian Literary Society, whose successor was the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, was founded in Braila.
During the conference the results of the three-year joint research of two Bulgarian-Romanian teams working under contracts between the IBCT – BAS and the above mentioned Romanian scientific institutions: "Traditional Culture, Social History and History of Languages in the European Southeast", headed by Prof. Cătălina Vătăşescu and Prof. Lora Taseva, PhD, and "Danube Routes: Communications, Religions and Trade Networks in the Balkans (15-19 c.) headed by Prof. Gheorghe Lazar and Assoc. Prof. Penka Danova, PhD.
Within the thematic panels of the conference "Trade in the European Southeast", "Languages, Linguistic and Literary Contacts", "Sources, History, New Interpretations" and "Literature" 26 papers were presented by scholars and PhD students from the partner institutes, as well as representatives from the Institute for Historical Studies, the Institute for Bulgarian Language "Prof. Lyubomir Andreychin", and the Cyrillo-Methodian Research Center at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski", and Southwestern University "Neofit Rilski". This forum is a contribution to the scientific dialogue between Bulgarian and Romanian researchers in the field of history, languages and cultures of the Balkan nations.
