This chapter considers the period from 1200 to 1600 because social and political realities of Southeastern Europe delineate such a delayed chronology. The latter term, beginning in the seventeenth century, marks the end of those medieval societies who used Slavonic for their cultural expression. The other main reason for this chronology is the fact that most of the literary production of ninth- and tenth-century Bulgaria is known through Russian literary activity. The chapter begins with the birth of new states using Slavonic as a cultural language on the territory of Byzantium at the end of the twelfth century. The chronological closing term of this study is marked by the two Romanian principalities, Wallachia and Moldavia, where court culture continued to use a medieval Slavonic dialect up to the beginning of the seventeenth century.
