OBJECT BIOGRAPHIES AND BIOGRAPHICAL OBJECTS FROM MEDIEVAL BULGARIA

Abstract

This study explores the concept of cultural biographies and biographical objects as a methodological framework for understanding the dynamic relationships between material culture, social identity, and historical memory in Early medieval Bulgaria. Drawing these notions together, this discussion traces the evolving significance of artifacts across different social and temporal contexts. Through a close reading of the Story of the Iron Cross—a Slavonic hagiographic text linked to the cult of Saint George—and analysis of some luxury items from the same period, this paper demonstrates how objects both real and fictional were imbued with complex social, political, and sacred meanings. The Iron Cross narrative in particular is rearranged through the stages of the object’s biography, emphasizing its manufacture, movement, and accumulation of commodities or status symbols but as active agents in the articulation of power, memory, and sacred economy in the First Bulgarian State. This study underscores the broad applicability of cultural biography frameworks to medieval material culture and invites reevaluation of how artifacts mediate historical experience.