Monthly Archives: July 2018

Two Books on the Ottoman/Turkish Heritage in Bulgaria

The territory of what is today the Republic of Bulgaria was for more than five centuries part of the Ottoman Empire and I think it is fair to say that the fight for liberation from what Bulgarians call either the “Ottoman Yoke“ or “Ottoman Slavery” is until today a defining moment for the identity of most ethnic Bulgarians.

Nations are, as Benedict Anderson puts it in his famous book, “Imagined Communities”. And the community called “Bulgarians” is defined not so much by historical events as they really took place, or by what certain historical figures (such as Vasil Levski or Hristo Botev) really did, and by what it meant in a strictly historical perspective, but more by the image Bulgarians have of these events and personages, the narrative that they learn in school or via the media. Hence the trend to mythologize the fight for liberation in the 19th century, hence the permanent exaggeration and distortion of certain historical facts, and the glossing over of others that don’t fit in the narrative that is generally accepted, but that is maybe not factually accurate. This is of course nothing specific to Bulgaria, it could be said for the national identity of all nation states: they are based on these kind of “constructs”. I have at least read a dozen Bulgarian novels, starting from Ivan Vazov’s “Under the Yoke”, to Anton Donchev’s famous (many say infamous) “Time of Parting”, to the remarkable more recent novel by Milen Ruskov “Uprising”, that deal in one way or the other with the liberation fight, or the relation of Bulgarians and Turks in the time of the Ottoman Empire. And the same can be said of Bulgarian Cinema: three of the biggest Box Office hits of the last years had exactly the same topic – the Bulgarian liberation fight in the 19th century.

But while these events that are formative to the Bulgarian identity seem to be part of the distant past, Bulgarians and Turks live still together in today’s Bulgaria. The material heritage of the Ottoman Empire, in the form of the remaining buildings from that time, as well as the people of Turkic origins (Turks, Gagauz, Tatars) that are living in comparatively peaceful coexistence with their ethnically Bulgarian neighbors in the country, are present, not past. When I say “comparatively peaceful” it means that there have been conflicts, especially in the time of communism when a ruthless policy of forced assimilation was introduced: Muslims (including Roma and Pomaks), as well as the non-Muslim Gagauz had to change their names, celebration of religious feasts was banned as well as the speaking of Turkish, and hundreds of thousands of Bulgarian citizens of Turkish origin were forced to leave Bulgaria and were stripped of their citizenship in 1989, just a few months before the (formal) end of communism rule in Bulgaria. A wave of terrorist acts (at least some of them perpetrated by the communist State Security) and self-immolations took place in the 1980’s, and while after the changes in the 1990’s these people were at least given back their citizenship and their own names, the relation between ethnic Bulgarians and Turks remains still strained and is frequently used by different political groups to incite ethnic unrest or even hatred.

As a country with great religious and ethnic diversity, Bulgaria should consider its material heritage from the Ottoman times as well as the diversity of people, ethnicities and religions that live in the country and are Bulgarian citizens as a treasure, not as a threat to some old-fashioned concept of nationalism.

For English-speaking readers I can heartily recommend two books that deal with the Turkish/Ottoman heritage of Bulgaria. A Guide to Ottoman Bulgaria by Dimana Trankova, Anthony Georgieff and Hristo Matanov (Vagabond Media 2012) takes the reader on a journey all over Bulgaria that leads to the mosques in Sofia, Samokov, Shumen, Plovdiv, Razgrad and Stara Zagora, but also to lesser known Ottoman buildings and traces in Gotse Delchev, Vidin, Ruse, Silistra, Belogradchik, Varna, Suvorovo and Uzundzhovo. A special chapter deals with Ottoman bridges (bridges similar to those described in Ivo Andric’s Bridge over the Drina or Ismail Kadare’s Three-Arched Bridge), and also with Ottoman fountains and abandoned mosques. The combination of highly knowledgeable text and beautiful photographs makes this book much more than another coffee table book. I am quite sure that most readers of this book will feel tempted to immediately undertake a tour to some of these buildings. The cover shows the so-called Devil’s Bridge at the Arda River in the Rhodopes.) Some photos from the book can be found here.

Turks of Bulgaria

While the previous book deals with the material heritage of the Ottomans, The Turks of Bulgaria (2012) is about the non-material heritage of the Ottomans in Bulgaria, the people and their history and culture. Chapters on history, including the forcible Bulgarisation campaigns against Turks already mentioned above; culture; folklore; religion; cuisine; music and dance; language. There is a detailed chapter on Pomaks (Bulgarophone Muslims) and Gagauz (Christian Turks), and the book is like the first one richly illustrated.

Vagabond Media is doing a terrific job in documenting the immense cultural heritage of Bulgaria in beautiful editions that combine high-quality photography with excellent essays that guide the reader. Titles like “A Guide to Jewish Bulgaria”, “The Bulgarians” (a book that I reviewed some time ago here), “A Guide to Thracian Bulgaria”, or “A Guide to Communist Bulgaria” , to mention just a few, make people aware what an incredible cultural richness Bulgaria represents, but they also document buildings that are frequently endangered and in disrepair. And in some cases, like with many of the buildings from Communist Bulgaria, it is rather obvious that in a few years’ time, all that will remain from them will be photos and books.

In any case, the books of Vagabond Media (and the high-end journal Vagabond too) are an excellent source for anyone with an interest in Bulgarian culture and architectural heritage. 

This review was first published at Global Literature in Libraries Initiative, 12 June, 2018 for #BulgarianLiteratureMonth.

© Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki, 2014-8. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

The White Coast

Balchik is a small coastal town at the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, approximately 30 kilometers north of Varna. A century ago, it was not much more than a fishing village, but its natural location at a small bay, its Mediterranean climate and its picturesque houses and small streets made it a magnet for the Romanian aristocracy and also for many artists – there was even a rather famous “Balchik School of Painting”. The painters came here during the long summer, hunting for motives and enjoying a carefree and relaxed lifestyle at this small Black Sea town.

Wait a moment, did I say “Romanian aristocracy”? Yes, indeed – some parts of North Eastern Bulgaria belonged to Romania in the period between 1913 and 1940, and therefore Balchik was for a few decades the most popular destination in Romania for these people in summer. Visitors who come to Balchik today – and you should visit the place once you come to the Bulgarian Black Sea coast – will see the impact this Romanian period had on the town until today.

Balchik

Balchik is a popular tourist destination because of the Palace of the Romanian Queen Maria (this Palace is indeed more like a small summer residence), and the small number of buildings attached to it, amongst which a minaret stands out that gives the place a bit of an “oriental” atmosphere. There is also a marble throne on the beach in front of the Palace, a favorite spot of the Queen from which she could look out at the Black Sea, waiting for a particular guest who would come by ship…

It was also the Queen, who – with the assistance of two Italian architects and a Swiss landscape gardener – arranged the whole plot of land as a mix of traditional, Moldovan and Oriental architecture with antique references, and who integrated a wonderful botanical garden (after years of neglect now taken care of by Sofia University); this botanical garden alone is worth a visit, and the part that is reserved for the different varieties of cacti is said to be the second biggest in Europe.

The biographical novel “The White Coast” by Marina Konstantinova (Largo City 2013, tr. Svetoslav Bogdanov) tells the story of Queen Maria and her “Quiet Nest” in Balchik, as she used to call it. Born Marie of Edinburgh as the daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (later Duke of Saxe-Coburg) and his wife, Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, she got married to Crown Prince Ferdinand of Romania, the heir apparent of King Carol I. in 1892 (he became King of Romania in 1914); she had six children.

Marriages within the royal families in Europe were dynastic affairs, and love was not necessarily part of the marriage arrangement. In Maria’s (or Missy’s, as she was called by almost everyone) case, there was a mutual affection that lasted over the decades, but husband Ferdinand was a very different character than his wife, and a process of estrangement triggered by the King’s frequent affairs led to an arrangement that allowed the Queen to lead a comparatively independent life, in which she was allowed to pursue her own interests that were mainly in the field of beauty and art.

Maria was a talented painter and musician, she wrote poetry and published several books of literary value. Apart from that, she took care of her surviving children (her youngest son died at the age of three) and in the building of her “Quiet Nest” in Balchik. The novel describes this period in Balchik, which was the happiest in Maria’s life. The story is told by two narrators, one of them is the Queen herself – the author has of course made use of Missy’s own writings -, the other one is the author. This switching between perspectives is easy to follow (the book is using bold script for Missy’s chapters), and the picture of the main character in the book is gaining more depth by this little “trick” of the author.

The Queen Maria we get to know in the novel, was a romantic, someone who occupied herself with her inner life, with beauty in art and nature, and with spiritual questions. But she took also very practical part in the creation of her small paradise, and took interest in the lives of her neighbors in Balchik. The building of a small port, the incoming guests, the money earned by the construction of the Palace and the garden, it all had a positive impact on the life and economic situation of the people in Balchik, and – if we can believe Missy’s writings – therefore the Queen was genuinely liked by the local people.

The book is also – and probably this is the most important part – the story of a great love. I mentioned the marble throne at the beach in Balchik. Here, Missy would wait after her husband’s death for the arrival of a man whom she had met only once; the enigmatic Arab sailor Ali, who fell in love with the Queen at first sight in Egypt when they were once introduced to each other on one occasion. After their meeting, Ali started to write her letters, and it was the letters that raised the interest of the Queen, who had never met a man who really loved her. I will not give away more, but the love story between Missy and Ali is the true center of the book and the author of the novel has done a remarkable job to tell this story in comparatively simple words but without false clichés.

I enjoyed this small and unassuming book; for later editions a few typos and minor translation errors should be corrected, but these small issues didn’t affect my reading much. If you want to get to know the story behind this truly unique place, reading “The White Coast” is a nice way to inform yourself, especially for those who visited Balchik.

The White Coast” can be bought at the Palace in Balchik, but you could also contact the publisher directly (Email: alfa3@abv.bg). Apart from the Bulgarian and English version, the book is also translated in Romanian and Russian.

Marina Konstantinova: The White Coast, Largo City 2013, translated by Svetoslav Bogdanov

Photo credit: Stefka Vasileva/Creative Commons

This review was first published at Global Literature in Libraries Initiative, 9 June, 2018 for #BulgarianLiteratureMonth.

© Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki, 2014-8. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 


Bulgarian Poetry in English Translation (III/3): the period 1944-1989 – Danila Stoianova

Unfortunately, Danila Stoianova didn’t have much time to fully develop her talent as a poet. She died 1984 at the young age of 23 after a long battle with leukemia. This disease, and a series of deaths in her family left a deep mark on her and one can not read her poems without thinking of her tragic fate.

Ivy Press Princeton published the major part of her small oeuvre in an excellent translation years ago (Memory of a Dream, 2003). You can find some samples of Stoianova’s poems here. Love poems, verses about her suffering, but also about solitude and nature give her poetry a rather wide spectre.

The grand old lady of Bulgarian poetry, Blaga Dimitrova said about Danila Stoianova’s verses:

“The poetry of Danila Stoianova broke open a long-walled-off window on the world. It resonates with early spring and brings the memory of the long harsh winter Bulgaria lived through. It speaks of life and death, of rebirth through the miracle of poetry.”

The translation of Ludmilla Popova- Wightman is congenial and very close to the original. Another gem coming from this small publisher that focuses exclusively on Bulgarian literature in English translation. The edition is bilingual and I can recommend it highly to poetry lovers.

This review was first published at Global Literature in Libraries Initiative, 18 June, 2018 for #BulgarianLiteratureMonth.

© Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki, 2014-8. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Bulgarian Poetry in English Translation (III/2): the period 1944-1989 – Blaga Dimitrova

In John Updike’s short story “The Bulgarian Poetess” the narrator reports the following short dialogue with the eponymous Bulgarian Poetess:

“Your poems. Are they difficult?”

She smiled and, unaccustomed to speaking English, answered carefully, drawing a line in the air with two delicately pinched fingers holding an imaginary pen: “They are difficult—to write.”

He laughed, startled and charmed. “But not to read?”

She seemed puzzled by his laugh, but did not withdraw her smile, though its corners deepened in a defensive, feminine way. “I think,” she said, “not so very.”

Yes, the poems of Blaga Dimitrova, the inspiration for this short story, are not so very difficult to read. Her poetry is about universal human experiences from a female point of view: love, motherhood, death are important topics in her verses. Forbidden Sea for example was written in a time when the author had to face a long battle with cancer. Her close encounter with death brought life into sharp focus, awoke in her eternal questions about the meaning of human existence, the magnetism of love, the mysteries and vicissitudes of human fate. The sea is present not only like a magnificent view, but also like a spontaneous rhythm, like a myth, a symbol of life, love, infinity and freedom. Freedom was lacking in Bulgaria, a totalitarian dictatorship with an iron censorship, a country where not only the sea was “forbidden,” but also “words!”

Dimitrova Forbidden Sea

As the introduction to one of her two available collections with poetry in English (Forbidden Sea, translated by Ludmilla G. Popova-Wightman and Elizabeth A. Socolow, Ivy Press Princeton 2000, and Scars, translated by Ludmilla G. Popova-Wightman, Ivy Press Princeton 2003) states correctly, her poems sublimate her conflicts in life she was facing as an independent and sometimes rebellious spirit in a dictatorship. Blaga Dimitrova, who was also an accomplished author of prose, has often been compared with some of the other great female poets of the 20th century: Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Gabriela Mistral, Wislawa Szymborska, Desanka Maksimovich and, above all her compatriots Elisaveta Bagryana and Dora Gabe.

Her poetry (samples can be found here and here), available in two volumes in excellent translation, is worth to be discovered!

This review was first published at Global Literature in Libraries Initiative, 11 June, 2018 for #BulgarianLiteratureMonth.

© Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki, 2014-8. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 


Bulgarian Poetry in English Translation (III/1): the period 1944-1989 – Konstantin Pavlov

Konstantin Pavlov was one of the most important and gifted Bulgarian poets of the period after 1944. His immense talent and poetic imagination, and his independent personality brought him in frequent conflict with the Communist regime. Fortunately, two of his poetry collections are available in English: Cry of a Former Dog (translated by Ludmilla G. Popova-Wightman, Ivy Press Princeton 2000) and Capriccio for Goya (also translated by Ludmilla G. Popova-Wightman, Ivy Press Princeton 2003). Pavlov’s first books were confiscated before they could reach bookstores and readers. After that, he was officially sentenced to silence for his courageous depiction of the terror in his country.

Pavlov’s poetry, stylistically innovative, is a moral protest against the totalitarian dictatorship in Bulgaria from 1944 to 1989. Many of Pavlov’s poems contain also satirical elements, irony and humor, despite the serious conditions in which he lived and the suffocating intellectual atmosphere from which authors like him suffered a lot. Some samples from the two books can be found here and here.

Pavlov Cry of a Former Dog

About the English editions of Pavlov, Paul Auster writes:

“Ludmilla Popova-Wightman’s translations of Pavlov have a lovely open-hearted vernacular feel to them. They have truly been rendered into American English.”

Don’t miss the chance to discover a truly great poet in excellent translations!

This review was first published at Global Literature in Libraries Initiative, 10 June, 2018 for #BulgarianLiteratureMonth.

© Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki, 2014-8. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 


Bulgarian Poetry in English Translation (II) – Available Titles From the Pre-1944 Period

In this second part of my short series about Bulgarian Poetry collections available in English translation, I will cover the period until 1944, the year of the Communist takeover in Bulgaria. While in the last blog post I was presenting anthologies, I will focus in this post on books that present the (selected) poems of a single author.

The years before 1944 were a rich period for Bulgaria’s poetry. And quite a lot of it has been translated at one point in English: in the Communist era, the state-owned publisher Sofia Press made most of the “classic” Bulgarian poets available in English (and some other languages). These books are of course out-of-print since a long time, but due to the lack of any later editions in English for many of the most relevant authors, they are still worth to be searched in antiquarian bookstores or internet platforms. I would particularly recommend – if you can find them – the volumes with Hristo Botev’s Poems, and Ivan Vazov’s Selected Poems. Both of them can be considered as founding fathers of Bulgarian literature. Other editions by Sofia Press include Selected Poetry and Prose by Hristo Smirnensky and The Road to Freedom by Geo Milev.

The good news is that in the last years three important Bulgarian poets from this period are again present with a book in English language.

Confidentially

Peyo Yavorov (b. 1878, Chirpan – d. 1914, Sofia) was, especially in his more mature years as a poet, a protagonist of the symbolist movement in Bulgaria. But at the same time, the man who wrote highly introspective poems, and verses that show great empathy for the lives of refugees from Macedonia and Armenia, was a man of action: just like Botev a few decades earlier, he joined the struggle for liberation from the Ottoman domination, in his case in Macedonia; the poet-partisan was – after his first big love died from tuberculosis – married to Lora Karavelova, the daughter of the former Prime Minister Petko Karavelov. But the marriage didn’t last long: in a bout of jealousy, Lora shot herself in front of Yavorov, and the poet committed suicide one year later, after a first attempt to take his life had left him blind, and a press campaign against him, even suggesting that he had murdered his wife, had made him a broken man. A collection of his poems (Confidentially, Black Sea Oleander Press 2018), skilfully translated by Christopher Buxton, gives the Anglophone reader an opportunity to get an idea of Yavorov’s remarkable gifts as a poet (more is not possible in any translation of poetry).

Debelyanov To return

Dimcho Debelyanov was a few years younger than Yavorov, but also his life was – like the lives of so many Bulgarian poets – cut short, in his case by WWI: he was killed in battle in 1916. Debelyanov, only 29 years old at the time of his death had moved from the symbolism of his youth to a more realistic style of poetry. Debelyanov is considered a master of the elegy, but in many of his poems there are also satirical elements. He was also a gifted translator from English and French. As in the case of Yavorov, Christopher Buxton is also here the translator, editor and publisher of a collection of Debelyanov’s poems (To return to your father’s house, Black Sea Oleander Press 2017), and to me this work seems similarly congenial as his Yavorov translations. I can recommend both books warmly, in any case these are two very welcome additions to the Bulgarian poetry shelf, and I hope there will be even more from this source in the future. The book cover shows a portrait of the poet and his birthplace, now a museum, in Koprivshtitsa, one of the most well-preserved old towns in Bulgaria and in any case worth a visit.

Vaptsarov Kino

Nikola Vaptsarov (b. 1909, Bansko – d. 1942, Sofia) was a trained naval engineer, who after years on ships in the Mediterranean, worked as an engineer in various factories and at the Bulgarian Railroad. He got involved with the Communist Party for whose military faction he secretly supplied arms for the resistance fight against the Germans; a dangerous activity, and Vaptsarov was finally arrested and executed by firing squad. During his lifetime, he published only one book, Motor Songs (1940) (under pseudonym). The concrete, colloquial poetry of Vaptsarov that includes reference to cinema, radio, technology, and modern culture, is widely unknown outside Bulgaria (although he was translated in 98 languages). Yannis Ritsos, the great Greek poet said about him:

“I consider Vaptsarov my brother in poetry and struggle.”

A slender volume, edited and introduced by Georgi Gospodinov, competently translated by Kalina Filipova, Bilyana Kourtasheva, and Evgenia Pancheva is available under the title “Kino” (Smokestack Books, 2014), and it is very much worth to be discovered by a wider readership. (The cover shows a mug shot of Vaptsarov, taken after his arrest.)

Yavorov, Debelyanov, Vaptsarov (and one could add Botev and Milev as well): all died young and not of natural causes. It’s a rather sad thought to imagine what they could have achieved, if their lives had not been cut short…

This review was first published at Global Literature in Libraries Initiative, 08 June, 2018 for #BulgarianLiteratureMonth.

© Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki, 2014-8. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Bulgarian Poetry in English Translation – Some Anthologies

Poetry is very popular in Bulgaria; I am still very much surprised about the sheer amount of new poetry collections that are published on the small Bulgarian market every year by „regular” publishers, but also by authors themselves (self-published, or “Samizdat” as they say in Bulgaria – an expression that hints at the subversive tradition of “self-publishing” in the Eastern European countries). And if we add the countless number of frequently very young people who publish their poems in Facebook, on blogs, or who read their poems in public – poetry readings are also a phenomenon that has emerged mainly in the last years, and many of them are well-visited -, you can imagine that Bulgaria is a country where there is no shortage of poets – or of people who would like to be called “poet”, in this part of the world still a very prestigious epithet.

But poetry needs also readers, and English-speaking readers face a problem here: it is difficult to orient yourself, if you are not already familiar with Bulgarian literature/poetry. In a series of four blog posts, I will try to provide a little orientation regarding Bulgarian poetry in English translation. What is available in English, where can you start, and what are the most interesting poetry books by Bulgarian authors in English – I hope you will find some useful answers regarding these questions in my small series.

The first part is devoted to anthologies; they are frequently the best way to get an overview about a certain literary genre or literary period since they cover a number of authors.

Flowers

Flowers don’t grow singly (CreateSpace 2016) is the name of a collection of classic Bulgarian poems selected and translated by Christopher Buxton, an author and translator that lives in Bulgaria since a long time. The earliest poems in the book are folk songs collected by the Miladinov brothers, and starting from Hristo Botev, Pencho and Petko Slaveykov, all the major authors of the pre-1944 period are represented; names like Mara Belcheva, Peyo Javorov, Geo Milev, Hristo Smirnenski, Dora Gabe, Dimcho Debelyanov, Elisaveta Bagryana, Nikola Vaptsarov, and others. A comparatively small collection that gives a representative overview over this “classic” period of Bulgarian poetry. As a “teaser” you could have a look at the website of Christopher Buxton with some samples of his translations.

 

End of the World

At the End of the World: Contemporary Poetry from Bulgaria (Shearsman 2012) is an anthology of seventeen Bulgarian poets writing and publishing from the middle of the twentieth century to today. Editor Tsvetanka Elenkova – herself an accomplished poet – and the translator Jonathan Dunne, her husband cover in this bilingual anthology the period that chronologically follows the covered period of the previous anthology; therefore a useful addition to your library, especially considering the excellent translations and interesting choice of authors: among them many of the most important names of the period covered by this book, such as Ivan Teofilov, Lubomir Levchev, Nikolay Kanchev, Ekaterina Yosifova, Ilko Dimitrov, Silvia Choleva, Peter Tchouchov, Kristin Dimitrova, Iana Boukova, Marin Bodakov, Yordan Eftimov, Nadya Radulova. Recommended for all with an interest in the post-1944 and contemporary Bulgarian poetry. A sample from the book can be found here.

 

Season of Delicate Hunger

The Season of Delicate Hunger (Accents Publishing 2013) is a 334-page collection of contemporary Bulgarian poetry, containing 197 translations of works by 32 Bulgarian authors, a titanic work by the editor Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, who translated almost all the poems in the collection herself. All authors of this anthology are alive, writing and actively participating in the Bulgarian poetry scene. They represent a diversity of talent, ranging in age from 72 to 21, with each at a unique stage of his or her career. The edition is bilingual and profits from the fact that Stoykova is a remarkable poet herself. Highly recommended! (You can find more information on the book here)

 

New Social Poetry

The literary scene in Bulgaria is quite diversified, and that’s particularly true for poetry. A new, fresh – and for some a bit provocative – poetic movement is New Social Poetry, a group of poets that has developed quite an impressive presence since its creation, with regular readings in various Bulgarian cities, a literary journal, and a number of books. New Social Poetry – The Anthology (CreateSpace 2018, translator Christopher Buxton) gives an overview about the variety of authors that are part of this movement or associated with it. (The anthology is also available in French – translator Krassimir Kavaldjiev -, and a Spanish and German translation are in preparation.) While some of the authors in this collection belong to the older and middle generation of Bulgarian poets, there is also a considerable number of young and very talented authors represented in this bilingual anthology, which makes this book a welcome enrichment to the previously published anthologies.

 

Some Bulgarian Poems

While I am editing this blog post, I found out that there is at least a fifth anthology that belongs here: Some Bulgarian Poems & A Play (edited by Zheny Bozhilova-Haytova, translated by Kevin and Dona Ireland; Altera 2014). This is an anthology containing samples of Bulgarian poetry from the late Revival period (1860’s) until the 1960’s. I haven’t seen it yet and it will be probably a bit difficult to order it outside Bulgaria, but this is a book I will look up in the near future.

This review was first published at Global Literature in Libraries Initiative, 07 June, 2018 for #BulgarianLiteratureMonth.

© Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki, 2014-8. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

John Atanasoff – The Electronic Prometheus

John Vincent Atanasoff (1903-1995) was an important American computer pioneer; his father was born in Bulgaria and came to the United States as a young boy. Due to his Bulgarian origin and some factors about which I will speak in this review, Atanasoff had a special relationship to the home country of his father, where he is held in high esteem – sometimes enthusiastically, but factually incorrect referred to as “the Bulgarian who invented the computer”.

The book John Atanasoff – The Electronic Prometheus by Blagovest Sendov (St. Kliment Ohridski University Press, Sofia 2003, translated by Maya Pencheva and Todor Shopov) is focusing on the “Bulgarian connection” of Atanasoff; while it is not a biography, it makes for the first time many documents and private letters of Atanasoff available, mainly the correspondence with the author of the book, a Bulgarian mathematician and computer scientist. In the last part, the book publishes Atanasoff’s own paper Advent of electronic digital computing, an account of his personal development and achievements as an engineer and scientist, a report that documents in detail not only the fascinating story of the ABC (Atanasoff-Berry Computer), but also the extremely long and difficult patent litigation that followed and that ended with an almost complete success for Atanasoff.

Atanasoff was a professor of physics and mathematics at the Iowa State College in the 1930’s, and one of his scientific interests was the solution of complex systems of up to 30 linear equations. Since these complicated systems of equations couldn’t be resolved in acceptable time by humans, and the existing calculators were also not able to process such complicated operations, it became clear to Atanasoff that he had to build a fast calculator himself if he wanted to get the job done. Together with Clifford Berry, a very talented graduate student, he worked in his free time on the development of such an engine. The two breakthroughs on the way to finally make the ABC operational were the decision to use binary code (with 2 instead of 10 as a base of the number system used), and to introduce electronic tubes instead of mechanic or electro-technical solutions.

Atanasoff started his work on the computer in 1937, first alone and later with Berry; in 1942, the ABC was operational. (Konrad Zuse’s Z3, a digital computer also on binary, but on electro-technical basis was already operational in 1941, more than one year before the ABC – a fact that was unknown to Atanasoff and Berry. Zuse’s computer was – contrary to the ABC – also Turing-complete. Strangely, Zuse is mentioned only once in Sendov’s book: “During WWII Conrad(sic!) Zuse built in Germany a computer too perfect for its time, which used switches.”)

In the period when Atanasoff and Berry were working on the ABC, a young professional, John Mauchley, got in touch with them; Atanasoff and Berry shared the basic concepts and the blueprints of the ABC with him during a visit of Mauchley that lasted several days; later it turned out that Mauchley used the design of the ABC as a basis of a computer he would build together with John Eckert: the ENIAC. In the patent documents they submitted, there was no mentioning of the fact that the basic concepts of ENIAC were indeed Atanasoff’s (and Berry’s), and not those of Mauchley and Eckert.

Atanasoff was for a long time unaware of this patent fraud, but an IBM patent expert visited him in the 1954 and promised him “If you will help us, we will break the Mauchley-Eckert computer patent; it was derived from you.” Considering his previous bad experience with IBM, Atanasoff declined, but in 1967 Sperry Rand Corporation started a law suit regarding the ENIAC patents, followed by a second one in 1971 (Honeywell vs. Sperry Rand). In both cases, Atanasoff – Berry had allegedly committed suicide, although the circumstances were somehow fishy – and his counterparts were heard as witnesses over extended periods. In 1973, a federal court in Minneapolis ruled that indeed the patent on ENIAC was void and that Atanasoff and Berry had built the first digital electronic computer and that the patented idea was Atanasoff’s.

In 1970, when Atanasoff’s role in the development of the modern digital computer was not widely known even in the scientific community, he was contacted by Sendov, then a professor at Sofia University. What started as a rather formal correspondence between colleagues who share similar research interests, grew into a close personal exchange that included several meetings in the United States and also two visits of Atanasoff in Bulgaria.

For Atanasoff, it must have been an emotionally extremely touching and uplifting experience that his achievements were not only recognized by his Bulgarian colleagues – he was even made a member of the Bulgarian Academy of Science, a rather rare achievement for a scientist from a capitalist country, who had on top of it a long track record in working in the development of the nuclear and conventional arms industry of the United States. Particularly his 1970 visit in his father’s home village Boyajik near Yambol (his grandfather had been killed by the Turks in 1876), the Bulgarian hospitality, the opportunity to connect with his unknown relatives and an old colleague from his time as a student, the personal friendship he made with Sendov and a few other scientists not only from the field of computer science – it is all reflected in the later very warm and personal correspondence of Atanasoff.

The engineer and scientist comes across in this correspondence as a good-natured, friendly and open man with a variety of interests that included beside his family such different fields as agriculture – he grew his own fruits and vegetables, something for which he “blamed” his Bulgarian heritage – or the plan for the development of a new universal phonetic alphabet, an issue he liked to discuss with a Bulgarian linguist as well. His Bulgarian friends even lobbied in Stockholm for him, when he was proposed as a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Physics, and Todor Zhivkov, the Head of State and Chairman of the Communist Party of Bulgaria wrote a support letter to get him the Marconi International Fellowship (both applications failed). The decades of battle in and out of court regarding the recognition of his and Berry’s invention in the United States were probably very disappointing for Atanasoff, and that the country of his father offered recognition, support and friendship meant for sure a lot to him.

I was of course wondering, if Atanasoff and Sendov had maybe second thoughts when they started their personal acquaintance that lead to such a close friendship, including also the families of both men. After all, it was the time of the Cold War, and it is difficult to imagine that the two of them moved completely out of the orbit of the intelligence services of both countries, for whom these meetings must have been extremely interesting. Therefore I wouldn’t be too surprised if one day documents related to that question would emerge from some archive. And I also wouldn’t be too surprised if the “Atanasoff story” would make it sooner or later into a Hollywood movie: it has all the ingredients a successful film needs.

Fazit: Atanasoff was a colorful person with a strong Bulgarian connection. Sendov’s book is the ultimate work on this topic (so far). Atanasoff was a very important computer pioneer, but not the inventor of the computer.

Blagovest Sendov: John Atanasoff – The Electronic Prometheus, St. Kliment Ohridski University Press, Sofia 2003, translated by Maya Pencheva and Todor Shopov

This review was first published at Global Literature in Libraries Initiative, 05 June, 2018 for #BulgarianLiteratureMonth.

© Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki, 2014-8. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Promoting Bulgarian Literature in the Anglosphere: Interview with Milena Deleva, Managing Director of the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation

The by far most important institution involved in promoting Bulgarian literature in the English-speaking world is the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation. I (TH) am extremely grateful to its Managing Director Milena Deleva (MD), for being so kind to agree to this interview despite her very busy schedule.

TH: Milena, most readers know probably Elizabeth Kostova at least by name. But what is the story behind the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation (EKF)?

MD: The Elizabeth Kostova Foundation (EKF) was established by the American author Elizabeth Kostova who after spending time traveling and researching in Bulgaria, has published a very successful debut novel “The Historian” and has made a generous and cultured gesture to repay a debt to the country she considered inspiration for her novel, by establishing a literary Foundation.

With that said, the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation was established back in 2007 in Bulgaria to promote and support contemporary Bulgarian literature. In 2016 we incorporated 501(c)3 in the US and our mission expanded.

Our work creates a literary nexus between Bulgaria and the United States by providing opportunities for Bulgarian authors and translators in Bulgaria and in the English speaking world, and by putting cultural diplomacy in practice.

Looking back at an entire decade, EKF has added Bulgaria to the Anglophone literary map and has launched many pioneering initiatives such as, creative writing workshops for American and Bulgarian writers, creative writing workshops for high school students, publication of Bulgarian novels in English, Fellowships for Bulgarian literary translators in the US and the UK, Translation Award, Translator Atelier, Curated literary reading series in the US, Literary festivals in the US and in Bulgaria. We also originated the Contemporary Bulgarian Writers website

The combination of all these activities and many unplanned “spillovers” helped the contemporary Bulgarian writers enter the international literary circuit.

TH: Maybe you can tell our readers a few words about your own background and your practical work at the EKF?

MD: Compared to my academic background, I hold MA in Cultural Studies from Sofia University, my work is way more practical. It does have to do with very tangible and actual results such as published books, among other literary publications, as well as other accomplished projects. I also hold MA in Arts Administration from Baruch College in New York. Nowadays, in America, unlike Europe where the notion for civil society is still stronger, nonprofits have to justify their work by breaking society in smaller, often imagined communities. Ironically, these don’t always perceive themselves as such, and the entire community rhetoric becomes a class issue. In this regard, our case is unique. With our work in the US we don’t aim at specific group of people, we aim at the global reader and are looking for creative cross-exposure between generations, established – emerging, local – foreign but also literary – non-literary. In this way, we have been able to cultivate new readership, and this is what is the real uphill battle.

In Bulgaria, we focus on creating professional opportunities for writers and translators, and nurturing context and literary communities, in addition to broadening the audience.

My specific and overarching work is hybrid. I often run projects from inception to completion, planning, programming, producing and securing grants for our programs. Being proactive and looking for opportunities for our main constituencies, including communication are also very important aspects of my job.

TH: According to the Three Percent Database of the University of Rochester, only about three percent of the newly published books in English language are translations, and if we only consider literary fiction, the figures are even smaller. What is on the bottom of this – a lack of interest from the side of the readers, or are publishers shying away from translations for other reasons? Do books by Bulgarian authors face particular obstacles to find a publisher in the English-speaking world?

MD: Yes, according to Bowker company, based on 2004 data, the fiction slice was less than 1% at the time the survey was announced.

Well, some publishers aren’t shying away from translations because this is what they specialize in, international literature is their sole profile.  Some of them are profit, others are incorporated as nonprofit organizations. Regardless of their legal status, normally they publish about ten titles per year, which perhaps corresponds to different variables – the demand, the number of staff, the financial means. Let’s not forget that both Knausgård and Bolaño were discovered by small publishing houses.

However, there are bigger commercial publishers who also acquire translations along with their Anglophone titles. There is a handful of Bulgarian writers who have been published by big publishing houses, two of the three write in English.

Bulgarian books do face numerous default obstacles. First of all, Bulgaria as a country doesn’t have any distinct international presence, then there is inconsistent or no state support at all. In fact, if there are any good news or breakthroughs connected to my homeland in the recent years, they’ve mostly come from arts and culture sphere (not just literature).

Consequently, there aren’t foreign literary agents enticed by representing Bulgarians, nor enough translators who are qualified to translate from Bulgarian to English. I am mentioning the former for two reasons. The translators are not only moving literature from one language to another, they, in many cases, serve as literary agents for international literature.

That is why our Sozopol Fiction Seminars are so important, they create supportive environment and contacts between Bulgarian authors and translators and Anglophone editors and publishers.

This makes our efforts even more important.

The current moment is a turning point for translated literature because many organizations have undertaken advocacy not only through publishing, but also by organizing book tours with international writers, encouraging international literature in the curriculum, and other initiatives such as involving booksellers who do the floor work. We have also organized classroom visits of Bulgarian authors to colleges in New York because the point is how do we establish and maintain literary culture that is friendly to international literature. It is not enough to publish it, the real challenge is to connect it with the ordinary reader. And hopefully, one day soon, have it reach its readership as any other quality literature.

TH: You have established a cooperation with Vagabond, a Bulgarian English-language periodical with high quality content, and also with Open Letter Books, the University Press of the University of Rochester. Can you tell us a few words about these corporations?

MD: Yes, these are our structured and organized partnerships that ensure small but firm flow of Bulgarian literature into the Anglosphere. With Open Letter Books we co-run an annual residency for one Bulgarian translator to spend three weeks in Rochester, working with the Press to refine their current translations, visiting Translation Studies workshops at the University of Rochester. Also, we co-run an annual novel contest, mentioned above.

Vagabond English Monthly provides a platform for a joint presence of the Bulgarian and the English language fellows at the Sozopol Fiction Seminars.

TH: My own perception as someone who lives in the country since 18 years is that nowadays there is a much bigger interest in contemporary Bulgarian literature among Bulgarian readers than was the case when I came to the country first. Apart from this increase in literary output, what has changed in Bulgarian literature in the last two decades?

MD: Yes, for many years, during the transition, home grown writers were sidelined by commercial foreign authors. The game has changed and more novels have been written and published.

More novels have been adopted for the screen or the stage. Novels are discussed on the National television. There are more opportunities for Bulgarian writers to travel and visit international forums. Living Bulgarian writers have entered the school curriculum.

TH: From my experience as a reader of Bulgarian literature in the original language, I get the feeling that a comparatively big number of authors write about topics that seem to be very specifically Bulgarian. Other authors seem to write more in a way that targets not primarily or exclusively a Bulgarian audience. In general I see attempts to become perceived as less “provincial”, compared to what is considered as “contemporary” writing. This goes together with a growing interest from the side of (potential) authors to attend creative writing courses. While this aims at learning the craftsmanship necessary to become an author, my fear is (maybe unjustified) that this may lead to a kind of mainstream literature that is written according to certain standards, but is sometimes lacking a certain freshness. It would be extremely interesting for me to hear a bit more about your experiences with the Sozopol Fiction Seminars the EKF is organizing every year.

MD: I guess the fear from uniform writing is a legitimate one. Very rarely we happen to host American authors who come outside of the MFA programs in creative writing. Even the critics of the MFA system hold a degree from one of the 229 programs in the country (source: Association of Writers and Writing Programs). According to the same data, there is a steady increase in non-academic jobs for writers. In Bulgaria, many writers earn their living in the commercial sphere. This only proves that writing is a fundamental and a transferable skill.

It is one of the reasons why we launched creative writing workshops for high school students, open to teens with interest for writing but not necessarily looking to become writers. Everybody can only benefit from writing well.

Back to the pivotal Sozopol Fiction Seminars…

Our workshop model provides safe space for peer reflection on works in progress and often the instructors themselves offer their own work on the discussion table. Bulgarian workshops are facilitated by Bulgarian writers, Anglophone workshops are facilitated by English language writers. The two groups have opportunity to share their works during one joint workshop session and also during the public readings. This non-didactic structure supports diverse writing aesthetics and styles.

TH: Bulgaria is a small book market with a quite big number of authors who are competing to get the readers’ attention. In terms of, let’s call it “literature infrastructure” that is important for authors, what is the situation in Bulgaria? I would particularly like to know what is your opinion regarding the official policy of the state regarding the promotion of Bulgarian literature (translation grants, residencies, participation in book fairs, etc.)? To me it seems that the main work to promote Bulgarian literature abroad is done by EKF and a few other programs, such as Traduki, and by some courageous publishers – but maybe my perception is wrong?

MD: Unfortunately, your perception isn’t wrong. There are exception and in fact cultivating government officials or introducing them to literature is a bit like cultivating donors but much harder.

The rant about the poor Bulgarian presence at book fairs, the high VAT for books, the limited number of diplomats who realize the role of culture in branding Bulgaria would be a very long one, and it is worth a separate discussion, preferably in Bulgarian language.

It will be extremely helpful if the state recognizes our efforts and supports initiatives like ours more consistently. It will be of mutual benefit because to a certain extent we do the state’s job. Even if we cease to exist some of the good outcomes of our work are irreversible but the literary noise needs to be maintained.

TH: One of the – possible – bottlenecks to see more Bulgarian books translated is the availability of good translators. There are quite a few, and especially Angela Rodel has been instrumental to make Bulgarian literature available to the English-reading audience. Are there any interesting talents among the young translators that are not so well-known yet? How is EKF supporting the translators?

MD: Yes, Angela Rodel has translated two thirds of the novels published within our programs in the UK and in the US. However, we are trying to encourage other translators to choose literary translation as a professional path.

We do this through regular programs, those that are designed to directly support translators are:

Translators Atelier in Sofia, conducted in collaboration with the Bulgarian Translators’ Union as an opportunity for translators to master the art of translation of different fiction genres and language directions.

Translation Residency, an opportunity for one Bulgarian translator to work in one of the premier American publishers of translated literature and workshop their translation with the students of the Translation Studies program at the University of Rochester.

As mentioned before we co-run this program with Open Letter Books, and in 2017 have launched a similar residency at the Norwich Writer’s Center in UK.

Krastan Dyankov Translation Award, a prize given annually for an outstanding translation of a work of contemporary literary fiction from English into Bulgarian.

In addition, EKF’s work creates many other spillovers for translators who have done some work for our programs but can independently submit their work to publications. Also, there are several Bulgarian features / issues, resulting by our activities, for example Drunken Boat, Words Without Borders, Ninth Letter, EuropeNow and there are many more magazines, which have published work by Bulgarian authors and reviews about Bulgarian books as a direct result from encounters in Sozopol.

TH: Is there a book by a Bulgarian author upcoming in English translation at this moment?

MD: The Same Night Awaits Us by Hristo Karastoyanov is the most recent book, published within our programs (January, 2018).

TH: The last question is maybe a bit difficult to answer for you; in your professional quality as director of the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation, you have to be impartial – but as a reader, I would like to know which is/are the untranslated Bulgarian book(s) you would love to see published in English soon?

MD: Ivailo Petrov, Преди да се родя и след това (Before I was born and thereafter).

I hope that after the beautiful work on Wolf Hunt, Archipelago will publish his other iconic novel as well.

TH: Thank you for this interview, Milena! Благодаря!

This interview was first published at Global Literature in Libraries Initiative, 01 June, 2018 for #BulgarianLiteratureMonth.

© Milena Deleva, 2018
© Global Literature in Libraries Initiative, 2018
© Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki, 2014-8. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.