Maria Litina read History at the University “St Climent Ohridski” in Sofia, specializing on the History of Byzantium and the Balkan peoples (1985-1990). She then pursued doctoral research on Church and Nation in the Ottoman Empire (19th c.), under the supervision of Professor Angeliki Konstantakopoulou and Professor Emerita Maria Nystazopoulou-Pelekides, at the University of Ioannina (2010). In her thesis Dr Litina examined in particular the involvement of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem to the Bulgarian Question in the second half of 19th century. Since 1997 she works as permanent staff at the Centre for History and Palaeography, Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece (CHP/CFNBG) in Athens. She has conducted research in the Library and Archive of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem as member of the CHP/CFNBG research project on cataloguing the Patriarchal documents (1997) headed by its Director Agamemnon Tselikas. Thanks to a research grant awarded by the General Secretariat of Research and Technology, the Bulgarian State and the European Commission, she participated in the research project “Orthodoxy and Education in the region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, 15th-18th c.”, conducted jointly by CHP/CFNBG and the Center for Slavo-Byzantine Studies “Prof. Ivan Dujčev”, University of Sofia (2003-2005). She has given papers at conferences and workshops in Greece and Bulgaria, and has co-organised a series of lectures on the History and Culture of the Slavic Peoples hosted by CHP/CFNBG (2011-2012). Dr Litina’s research interests focus on 19th-20th century Balkan history and historiography, particularly Greek-Bulgarian relations in the period of the Bulgarian ‘Renaissance’, the history of the Bulgarian Church, the Greek presence in Bulgaria, and Russia’s policy in Palestine.
Profile details
Period of affiliation:
2014 - 2015
Organisation:
Centre for History and Palaeography, National Bank Cultural Foundation