Bulgarian National Revival
The nearly five centuries of Ottoman government of Bulgaria played a decisive role in the developing of the Bulgarian culture. The country was separated from the European Renaissance movements and higher forms of artistic expression and developed mostly its folklore songs and fairy-tales. A new revival of Bulgarian literature began in the 18th century with the historiographical writings of Paisius of Hilendar, Istoriya Slavyanobolgarskaya. Another influential work was Life and Sufferings of Sinful Sophronius by Sophronius of Vratsa.
In the period 1840-1875 the literature came alive with writings on mainly revolutionary, anti-Turkish themes. It was an earlier stage of the Bulgarian Renaissance and the most prominent poets at this time were: Vassil Drumev (Kliment Turnovski), Rayko Zhinzifov and Dobri Chintulov.
The noted poet and revolutionary Hristo Botev (1848-1876) worked in the late 19th century and is nowadays regarded as arguably the foremost Bulgarian poet of the period. He managed to use the living language of the folklore songs to give an expression of modern ideas, doubts and questions. His works are small in number, most of them with intensive dialogue form and strong emotional message.
Among the writers who engaged in revolutionary activity were also Lyuben Karavelov and Georgi Sava Rakovski. Rakovski's best-known work, Gorski Patnik (translated as A Traveller in the Woods or Forest Wanderer) was penned during the Crimean War (1853–56) while hiding from Turkish authorities near the town of Kotel. Considered one of the first Bulgarian literary poems, it was not actually published until 1857.
A typical feature of the period was the increase of the interest in Bulgarian folklore, as figures like the Miladinov Brothers and Kuzman Shapkarev made collections of folk songs and ethnographic studies. Another writer with works of great importance is Zahari Stoyanov (1850-1889) with his Memoirs of the Bulgarian Uprisings (1870-1876). His writings have historical, biographical and artistic value.
Read more about this topic: Bulgarian Literature
Famous quotes containing the words bulgarian, national and/or revival:
“Americans are rather like bad Bulgarian wine: they don’t travel well.”
—Bernard Falk (1943–1990)
“Maybe it’s understandable what a history of failures America’s foreign policy has been. We are, after all, a country full of people who came to America to get away from foreigners. Any prolonged examination of the U.S. government reveals foreign policy to be America’s miniature schnauzer—a noisy but small and useless part of the national household.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)
“Mother goddesses are just as silly a notion as father gods. If a revival of the myths of these cults gives woman emotional satisfaction, it does so at the price of obscuring the real conditions of life. This is why they were invented in the first place.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)