Abdicating in 1196, Nemanja joins his son Rastko (later canonized as St. Sava) in a monastery at Mount Athos, Greece, and assists him in establishing the monastery of Khilandar, which will become a focal point of medieval Serbian culture and ecclesiastical leadership.

Father Paisi of Hilandar writes a history of the Bulgarian peoples in 1762 in a mixture of Old Church Slavonic and vernacular language.

The book (which will circulate in manuscript form for nearly one hundred years) is a lively, readable celebration of the Bulgarian past and a call for all Bulgarians to remember their heritage and cultivate their native language. (Paisi's history will inspire generations of writings on Bulgarian patriotic themes. In part, its influence is strong because Paisi writes at the monastery of Mt. Athos, the largest spiritual center in the Balkans and an early receptacle of ideas of the European Enlightenment).