The project “European influences in the modern urban music culture in the Balkans. Bibliographic research” implemented by the Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Thracology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (IBSCT-BAS) started in the beginning of 2020. The scholarly team led by Assist. Prof. Dr. Alexandra Milanova is composed of representatives of the IBSCT-BAS, the National Music School Lubomir Pipkov, and the Institute of Musicology of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

The main objective of this interdisciplinary project is conducting a bibliographic study of European influences in the modern urban music culture in the Balkans. By collecting, systematizing, classifying, and cataloging of documents, a bibliographic corpus, which covers different in type and content materials on the topic was created. Thereby, a major gap in Bulgarian and European scholarly literature was filled. This particular type of research has been missing for years and its advent is a worthy contribution to the academic literature.

The bibliographic corpus created as a result of the project is published on this website with free access. In addition, a significant part of the materials collected during the implementation of this project are digitized, systematized, classified and integrated into national and international e-infrastructures. Some of the documents will be presented to the general public for the first time.

The original bibliographic study of European influences in the modern urban music culture in the Balkans will be a solid base for future scholarly work, both in the field of historical science (social and cultural history, processes of modernization in Balkan societies, history of music, etc.) and in musicology as well as in the digitization of cultural heritage. This in turn will contribute towards increasing the number of open access scholarly materials, supporting national and international research, involving young researchers in scientific dialogue, as well as encouraging and expanding international academic cooperation. The results of this project will also contribute to raising the public interest in preservation, promotion and development of national and European cultural heritage.