Renaissance people looked back to Greece and Rome as role models.
Should Bulgaria use another time or place as a role model?.
Just after the fall of the Roman Empire all the knowledge of the Roman civilization was lost. People in the middle ages were not developed. They started developing from the very beginning. The Feudalism and the clergy that developed after the fall of the Roman Empire stagnated the development of the culture, science, art, ect. Everything was devoted to the God and the feudal lord. .
According to me the Renaissance people hit the jackpot by looking back to Rome and Greece. Soon after that people realized that not everything said by the Pope and the clergy is true. They realized that the Earth is not flat, the Sun doesn't go round the Earth and step by step they started alienating from the "dark ages". The culture, science and art started developing.
As a result where are we? Today's civilization is the most advanced ever lived on the Planet. We can go to the outer space, to land on the Moon, and even we think how to colonize other planets! That was something unbelievable in the middle ages moreover the middle ages" people would burn the person who would dare to thing that something like that is possible. That is enormous leap in the technologies and mentality of the people. Everything would be impossible without the start Greek and Romans gave to the Renaissance people.
I think that it's not a good idea for Bulgaria to use another time or place as a role model. After the liberation in 1878 and the disappointment after the peace treaty from Berlin, we did that mistake two or three times. The Balkan wars, the first and the second world wars were lead just for a goal: Tzar Simeon's Bulgaria, Bulgaria on three seas, powerful enough to destroy any country as big as the Byzantine Empire.
And all these wars ended in disaster. Economic crisis after crisis and finally the communism.