Submissions

Author Guidelines

The Editorial Board strongly encourages authors to read the following instructions before submitting a manuscript to the Journal.

Authors must first Login or Register, in order to submit a paper.

These guidelines have been formulated in line with the aim of the Annual to maximise the visibility of published texts in international scientometric databases. They are based on ISO 690:2021(E), Information and Documentation — Guidelines for Bibliographic References and Citations to Information Resources.

Checklist for Preparing a Submission

When logging into the online system to submit a manuscript via the OJS platform, authors must first verify that their submission meets all the specified requirements. Submissions that do not comply with these guidelines will not be considered for review or publication.

• The submission has not been previously published and is not under consideration for publication by another journal.
• The author has not relied on ghost, gift, or guest authorship.
• The submission file is in Microsoft Word (.docx), Rich Text Format (.rtf), or LibreOffice (.odt) document file format.
• The text should be single-spaced, in a 12-point font, in bold and italics, rather than underlined (except for URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables should be placed at the appropriate points in the text, rather than at the end. They must also be provided as separate files in the OJS system.
• The text conforms to the stylistic and bibliographical requirements set out in the Guidelines for Authors.
• By proceeding with the submission process, the Author accepts on the copyright and licensing policy of the Journal.

All manuscripts submitted to GSU-IF are first evaluated by the Editorial Board and only if they meet the preliminary requirements are they forwarded to a double-blind peer review process.

Technical requirements

The Editorial Board of the Journal strongly encourages authors to submit articles and studies with original ideas, developments, and newly explored hypotheses, as well as discussions, short scientific reports, and reviews. Detailed presentations of well known theoretical propositions, concepts, or definitions freely available from other sources are not encouraged.

Language: The Annual of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” - Faculty of History accepts submissions in both Bulgarian and English. The quality of the written manuscript is a crucial factor in the initial evaluation process; only articles of high linguistic quality will be considered for review and publication. The Editorial Board encourages authors to use national or international proofreading services at this stage. Should a manuscript fail to meet the language requirements upon resubmission, it will no longer be considered by the Journal’s Editorial Board.

Formatting: Articles will be accepted and approved for publication in accordance with the guidelines outlined in the "RULES for Acceptance and Printing of Manuscripts in the Annual of Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski", adopted by the Academic Council of Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" on 19 December 2018 (Protocol No. 5/19.12.2018), as well as by the decisions made by the Editorial Board of the Annual for each new issue.

The manuscript should be formatted in a standard word processing programme such as Microsoft Word. Applications (graphs, tables, illustrations, etc.) must be suitable for processing with the above software. The manuscript should be uploaded in .docx or .rtf format using a 12 point Times New Roman font. In order to facilitate the publication process, authors are strongly advised to use only the most basic formatting, e.g. emphasising the use of italics, bold, and different font sizes. Authors are advised to avoid using special styles or tabs in their manuscripts. It is recommended to use standard units of measurement from the International System of Units (SI) in the Latin alphabet.

Authors are also requested to upload all figures, illustrations, and tables separately from the text, indicating their position in the file. It is recommended that they be submitted in print quality .jpg format.

The title page should include the title of the article, the first name and surname of the author(s), their work address/institutional address, their academic email address, and their ORCID profile. The author should provide an abstract in both Bulgarian and English and five to seven keywords in both languages. If the author is not familiar with Bulgarian, the section editor or another responsible person should translate the abstract and any other required information at no cost.

Structure: To ensure the integrity of the text, it is suggested that the manuscript to be structured in the following order: Introduction, Research methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgments /if any/, References. There is no fixed maximum length for the manuscript.

Bibliography and footnotes: Manuscripts submitted to GSU-IF are evaluated based on their academic merit; therefore, all authors must provide detailed information about the scientific methods they have used, the sources they have consulted, and the data they have collected. It is not encouraged to cite literature that is not relevant to the proposed topic, to list literature that is not referenced in the text, or to use excessive self-citation.

The bibliography should consist of sources relevant to the topic, arranged in alphabetical order without additional spacing, using standard bibliographic conventions and abbreviations. For articles written in Bulgarian, sources in Cyrillic script should be listed first, followed by those in Latin script and any sources in other scripts (e.g., Greek, Arabic). A transliterated Latin version should be provided for all sources not originally in Latin script. Conversely, for articles written in English, sources in Latin script should be listed first, followed by those in Cyrillic and other alphabets, with a transliterated Latin version provided for these sources.

Authors and works cited, as well as other comments on the text, are identified by numerical indices,  numbered consecutively throughout the article, with a footnote on the appropriate page. The index in the text is always placed before the characters period, comma, semicolon, colon, hyphen and after the characters question mark, exclamation mark, quotation marks.

The bibliographical description of the sources cited follows the standard previously used so far in GSU-IF, updated in accordance with the international standard BDS ISO 690:2021.

Short Guide on Citations (PDF)

Manuscript submission

Manuscripts must be submitted online. Authors must first Login or Register, in order to make a submission. The minimum information an author must provide in their profile is their academic affiliation, academic email address, and ORCID profile.

If an author is unable to use the OJS system, he/she may instead submit his/her manuscript to the Journal's email address. This means the author has automatically delegated the rights to process their manuscript to the Technical Assistant. In this case, the Technical Assistant is obliged to ensure the anonymity of the manuscript and to communicate with the Editor-in-Chief

ORCID: The author is obliged to have a personal profile in ORCID, and is encouraged to have one in e.g. ResearcherID/WoS, Scopus, etc. These are required to enable the author to present his/her work and texts transparently to the international academic community. The personal ORCID number will be displayed on the title page of the article.

All files (manuscripts, images, tables, etc.) must be uploaded to the system twice – once with all the information required above (such as name, affiliation, and contact information), and a second, anonymised version (in which all information that could reveal the identity of the author(s) of the article has been removed). This is essential to ensure double-blind peer review and the integrity of the review process. The author must aim to upload images of the highest possible quality images to support the publication process.

GSU-IF only considers manuscripts that have been submitted exclusively to it. By submitting a manuscript to the Annual, the author expressly declares that the text has not been published, or submitted for publication in any other journal. By submitting a manuscript, the author agrees to comply with the requirements and ethical principles set forth in the Publication Ethics of the Journal, and the Ethical codex of Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski". Violation of these principles will be considered as refusal of future cooperation between the author and the Annual.

Manuscript processing

Initial evaluation: Upon submission of the manuscript to the online system of the Annual, the Editor-in-Chief, with the assistance of an appropriate Section Editor, will make an initial evaluation of the article to determine whether it is suitable for review. For example, a submitted manuscript that does not fit the theme of the Annual, does not comply with the ethical guidelines, or is not formatted according to the guidelines will be rejected without going through an anonymous review process. The author will be informed of the Editorial Board’s decision in a timely manner.

Originality check: Before submission for peer review, manuscripts are checked for originality by StrikePlagiarism to prevent academic and professional plagiarism. This ensures that articles accepted for publication meet the highest possible standards of publication ethics. The Annual reserves the right not to publish an article if it is found to be more than 20% similar.

Peer Review: Once the previous steps have been successfully completed, the manuscript is assigned to reviewers. The peer review process can take up to three months, including the initial evaluation, but depending on the manuscript, additional time may be required.

The author will receive the reviews through the OJS system, accompanied by an automatic email notification sent to their academic email address, indicating that an update to the manuscript has been made. The author will then have two weeks to make the necessary revisions based on the reviews. If the author is unable to meet this deadline, they should inform the Editorial Board by email.

Upon successful completion of the peer review process, manuscripts will be sent for editing and, if necessary, copyediting. The issue of the Annual is then prepared for pre-printing. After this step, it is digitally uploaded to the Journal’s website and submitted to the University Press “St. Kliment Ohridski” for printing.

If one of the reviewers makes recommendations on the manuscript and the editor in charge agrees with them, the author of the manuscript is obliged to make the appropriate corrections. In case of disagreement with the suggested corrections, the author may withdraw the manuscript.

Alternatively, the editor in charge may make suggestions for improving the manuscript in accordance with the recommendations. In the event of disagreement between the reviewer and the editor in charge, the Editor-in-Chief will arrange for a second review. Finally, the process concludes with a discussion of the final review by the Editorial Board, which makes the final decision to publish or reject the manuscript. In the event of a conflict of interest, please refer to the relevant section of the Publication Ethics.

If the reviewers conclude that the manuscript is completely unsuitable for publication, and the Editor in charge agrees with this assessment, the Editorial Board will decide that the material should be rejected. If the Editor-in-Chief does not agree with this decision, he/she may appoint additional reviewers. Reviewers may be members of the Editorial Board whose field of expertise is appropriate to the manuscript.

If one of the peer reviewers indicates that the manuscript is suitable for publication after correction, the Editor-in-Chief may proceed with publication, provided that the author's obligation to correct the manuscript has been successfully fulfilled.

The author retains the right to refuse publication or to follow the recommendations, and is obliged to complete and submit a manuscript withdrawal form if he/she decides to exercise this right. If the author decides to make the necessary corrections, and does so in timely manner, the editor in charge will resubmit the manuscript to the reviewers. These subsequent evaluations will be taken into account by the Editorial Board when deciding whether or not to publish the manuscript. If the manuscript is rejected, it will be kept on file for a period of five years.

If the author declares in writing the withdrawal of his/her manuscript, all data received will be removed from the Journal's records.

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During the pre-publication stages, comments may be made by the editor(s), so the author is strongly advised to check his/her inbox regularly. Before the peer review process is completed, the author has the right to request that the text be withdrawn. For more information on the peer review process, please refer to the Peer Review Policy.

The time intervals for the above stages are determined by the editorial and publishing activities in a three-month period, in order to respect the periodicity of the Journal. Manuscripts will be published according to the stages of submission, peer review, decision to publish and technical preparation for publication in the Journal. During these three months, the author will be kept informed of the status of his/her manuscript.

The articles submitted in GSU-IF fall under the following categories:

Articles and Studies

This section publishes articles and studies with original ideas, developments and new facts, as well as discussions, short scientific reports, reviews in Bulgarian or English. The subject matter may cover different periods of the world history, Bulgarian and Balkan history, as well as various types of social, political and cultural problems. The materials may be devoted to various issues of archival studies, cultural anthropology, archaeology, unsolved cases in the border areas of research between history and ethnology, history and geography, philosophy, linguistics, history and museum work, documentary studies, etc. Methodological developments related to new teaching methods in history, ethnology, archaeology, museology will be accepted.

Debuts

The Editorial Board of GSU-IF actively encourages submissions from young researchers, especially PhD students and postdoctoral fellows affiliated with the Faculty of History, who present innovative theses and ideas and have successfully passed the peer review process. These materials may also form part of a doctoral thesis in preparation or defence.

Reviews

The journal accepts reviews of published scholarly books and articles in the fields of history, ethnology and cultural anthropology, archaeology, archival studies, and didactics. Reviews of materials published up to 2020 are encouraged. Reviews may also be in Bulgarian or English, subject to publication layout requirements.

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The Editorial Board adheres to the requirements of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). More information is available on the Privacy Statement webpage. If an article is rejected, all digitally submitted documents will be removed from the online system, while any existing paper documents will be removed from the publisher's records and destroyed after a period of five years. If the author sends a completed and signed manuscript withdrawal form, their data will be deleted immediately.

Contributor roles

GSU-IF adheres to contemporary standards of publication ethics. To ensure compliance, the author is required to disclose and identify (using an ISO-certified PID such as ORCID) his/her colleagues who have contributed to the submitted manuscript. The three most common contributor roles are:

1) Writing – Original Draft

This is the role usually assigned to the author(s).

2) Writing – Review and Editing

This role is assigned to a colleague who has contributed editing, reflection and ideas to the manuscript. For doctoral students, this role is usually assigned to their academic supervisor.

3) Resources

This role is usually assigned to a colleague who has provided the author(s) with the resources used to write the original draft. These resources may be archival sources, digital copies, paper copies, personal collections, etc.

 4) Other contributor roles

The other contributor roles are (but not limited to): Conceptualization; Data Curation; Formal Analysis; Funding Acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project Administration; Resources; Software; Supervision; Validation; Visualization.