Summary: Paul Josef Šafařík was the first scholar of Slavic origin to deal with the ethnology, language, archeology, and initial history of the Slavic tribes. He examines these topics in a very complex way in his study Slavonic Antiquities published in Prague in 1837.
The paper presents the main results of Šafařík’s study with special emphasis on the Bulgarian topics. Since the main organizing criteria is based on the languages and dialects spoken by the different groups, the author defines as Slavs of the Bulgarian group tribes which inhabited vast spaces outside Bulgarian state territory. Further, he defines the language spoken by this tribe as a linguistic basis for the first Slavic liturgical language, which later spread among other nations. Slavic Christianization carried out through their own liturgical language is considered by the author to be the main civilization change in the early history of the Slavic peoples.
Keywords: Paul Josef Šafařík / Schaffarik, Slavonic Antiquities, Slavic tribes, Slavs of Bulgarian group, Cyril and Methodius
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