The History ol , v:i IL Illlllf iM %.m:.:A Iiiil,;l|iBif| M283h UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA LIBRARIES COLLEGE LIBRARY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from LYRASIS Members and Sloan Foundation http://archive.org/details/historyofmodernbOOmann Modern Bulgarian Literature The History of Modern Bulgarian Literature by CLARENCE A. MANNING and ROMAN SMAL-STOCKI BOOKMAN ASSOCIATES :: New York Copyright © 1960 by Bookman Associates Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 60-8549 MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY UNITED PRINTING SERVICES, INC. NEW HAVEN, CONN. Foreword This outline of modern Bulgarian literature is the result of an exchange of memories of Bulgaria between the authors some years ago in New York. We both have visited Bulgaria many times, we have had many personal friends among its scholars and statesmen, and we feel a deep sympathy for the tragic plight of this long-suffering Slavic nation with its industrious and hard-working people. We both feel also that it is an injustice to Bulgaria and a loss to American Slavic scholarship that, in spite of the importance of Bulgaria for the Slavic world, so little attention is paid to the country's cultural contributions. This is the more deplorable for American influence in Bulgaria was great, even before World War I. Many Bulgarians were educated in Robert Col- lege in Constantinople and after World War I in the American College in Sofia, one of the institutions supported by the Near East Foundation. Many Bulgarian professors have visited the United States in happier times. So it seems unfair that Ameri- cans and American universities have ignored so completely the development of the Bulgarian genius and culture during the past century. Even American Slavic scholars know little or nothing of modern Bulgarian literature. There have been a few transla- tions of the works of two of the greatest authors, Khristo Botev and Ivan Vazov, but these are now out of print. The other nineteenth- and twentieth-century authors are not even known by name in the United States. In short, any attempts to interpret Bulgarian literary culture have been either non-existent or so feeble that they have scarcely achieved their purpose of making the country known in the Anglo-Saxon world. Yet modern Bulgarian literature, from its scanty origins in the eighteenth century, has developed an individuality which dif- ferentiates it from the culture of the other Slavic nations and corresponds to the Bulgarian national character and to the unfortunate fate of the Bulgarian nation. The nation was forced to enter two World Wars on the losing side and, now under the terror of the Communists, it is under a government that is intent upon changing the entire traditional culture of the people and upon remodelling its customs and literature according to the Soviet pattern. It is our modest aim to help fill this vacuum in America with this study of modern Bulgarian literature, presented against the background of Bulgarian history, which offers a good example of the evolution of modern Slavic nationalism. We sincerely hope that this volume will lead to a better un- derstanding of the path which the Bulgarians have been com- pelled to travel. We believe that it will give a better under- standing to the people and encourage efforts to set the Bulgarian people free from their present yoke to resume their march toward membership in a free world and a world of peace, harmony, freedom, and democracy for all nations. At the present moment literary research in both Bulgaria and the Soviet Union is stressing the interrelations of Bulgarian and Ukrainian literature. These relationships have been almost completely disregarded by American scholars and so they have been more or less noted in this volume. As the Ukrainian authors are little known to Americans, footnotes have been appended for purposes of identification. In the last chapter we have added selections of Bulgarian poetry, for poetry is one of the most characteristic features of any literature. The transliteration system used in this book is based upon that of the Library of Congress with some necessary modifica- tions. To differentiate the ancient state of Kievan Rus from the rising Principality of Moscow, we have used for the former the term found in the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, the medieval English word, "Ruce." In conclusion we can only hope that in some degree this book will serve its purpose of making known to the American peo- ple a Slavic country which has had a remarkable and unfortunate history but which is still far from conquered and will ultimately play its own free role in the free world. New York, New York Milwaukee, Wisconsin October, 1958 Clarence A. Manning Roman Smal-Stocki Contents Chapter Page 1. The Historical Background 11 2. Old and Middle Bulgarian Literature 30 3. Father Paisi Khilandarski 45 4. Educators and Revolutionists 52 5. Khristo Botev 73 6. Ivan Vazov 80 7. The First Decades after Liberation 94 8. The Coming of Modernism 107 9. Bulgarian Prose and Drama 123 10. The Period of Discouragement 130 11. Toward Communism 145 12. The Communist Period 152 Conclusion The Characteristics of Bulgarian Literature 163 Selections of Bulgarian Poetry 167 Bulgarian Folksongs 167 Petko Rachev Slaveykov 171 Khristo Botev 174 Ivan Vazov 177 Pencho Slaveykov 181 Peyu Yavorov 184 Notes 187 Selected Bibliography 190 Index 192 CHAPTER ONE The Historical Background To understand the special situation in which modern Bul- garian literature developed, we must have at least a general idea of the history of the Bulgarian people in the past as well as in the present. We must take into account the geographical position of the land which likewise played an important role in the fate of the nation. The Bulgarian people, numbering almost 7,000,000, live in the eastern half of the Balkan peninsula and occupy much of the area in which the original Bulgarians first settled. Their territory is bounded on the east by the Black Sea and the European section of Turkey. In the south Greek Thrace, a narrow strip of territory which was once under Bulgarian rule, cuts them off from the Aegean Sea. In the west their territory abuts on Yugoslavia. The northern boundary of the state is the Danube River which separates them from Romania and near its delta creates the thorny Dobrudja question. The ter- ritory is cut almost in half by the Balkan Mountains with the fertile lands to the north sloping down to the Danube and those of the south toward the Greek border. The territory which the Bulgarians now inhabit was formerly a part of the Roman Empire and the course of the old Roman roads can still be traced, especially those running from the west to the east. With the division of the Roman Empire in the year 395, the present Bulgarian lands fell within the terri- tory of the Eastern Empire with its political and ecclesiastical capital at Constantinople or, as the Greeks liked to call it, "New Rome." This territory was then largely inhabited by Greeks, although it undoubtedly contained remnants of the pre-Greek 11 12 Modern Bulgarian Literature Thracians and Illyrians. These latter peoples, of whom we have little detailed knowledge, flowed over into Macedonia, originally the homeland of Philip and Alexander the Great. In the course of the sixth century this area was invaded by various East Slavic tribes, partly the ancestors of the present-day Belo-Ruthenians and Ukrainians, who overran the Balkan Penin- sula and even settled in the Peloponnesus. 1 At that time the entire territory from Mount Haemus to the Peloponnesus and the Aegean Sea was called Slavania or Slavonia. 2 How far these Slavs accepted Christianity is still uncertain but there was apparently little conflict at this period between the old inhabi- tants and the invaders. They were well on their way to being acclimated in the Byzantine Empire when the Bulgarian horde 3 made its appearance. This was a group of Altaic-speaking nomads, and their lan- guage was probably a mixture of Turkic dialects with some possible influences of the old Hunnic speech, something like modern Chuvash. They formed the nucleus of a state on the Volga in Black Bulgary where their leaders showed remarkable statesmanship. In the course of the seventh century, during the folk migrations, they moved westward across the Ukraine and into the present Romania. Finally, in 679, under Khan Asperukh, they crossed the Danube into the old province of Moesia. Fol- lowing wars with the Byzantines, they secured permission of the Byzantine Emperor to establish a Bulgarian state with its first capital at Pliska-Aboba in the northeastern part of modern Bulgaria. Since this was about the time when Constantinople was threatened by the first great assault of the Arabs, some scholars have thought that the Bulgarian horde had some un- derstanding with the other foes of Byzantium. For the next two centuries Bulgaria prospered. The Slavic cultivators, a sturdy and hard-working stock, soon Slavicized the Bulgarian nomads who formed a comparatively small dominant class. Giving up its nomadic habits, the horde merged with the surrounding Slavs and by intermarriage created a unified Slavic nation under the old Altaic name. By the beginning of the ninth century, even the original Bulgarian Altaic lan- guage had disappeared and had been replaced by a form of The Historical Background 13 Slavic. The process was similar to that which went on when the Franks, the Teutonic conquerors of Gaul, were completely assimilated by the native population but left the country and nation their name—France. In Bulgaria, too, the conquerors, the Altaic Bulgars, gave their name to the more civilized Slavic tribes whose customs and language they adopted.