Poetry
September
Септември
Geo Milev · 1924
Opening lines
Нощта ражда из мъртва утроба
вековната злоба на роба:
своя пурпурен гняв —
величав.
Дълбоко сред мрак и мъгла.
Night gives birth from a dead womb
to the age-old rancour of the slave:
its crimson wrath,
majestic.
Deep amid darkness and mist.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from chitanka.info
Synopsis
Night begets the endless anger of the slave. In numbered, rhymed and resonant sections, the poem has the peasants and workers rise in the darkness, armed with their tools, against the power born of the coup d'état of June 1923; then come the shootings, the hanging of Pope Andrei, the mass executions. Against this massacre, the poet sets up a vision in which Achilles, Cassandra and the gods appear.
Context
The poem appeared in November 1924 in issue 7-8 of Plamak, devoted to the first anniversary of the uprising, with articles against the police, the State and the Church; the entire issue was confiscated. Prosecuted under the law for the defence of the State, the author was sentenced on 14 May 1925 to a year in prison and a heavy fine, and appealed. Maria Georgieva sees in it a political act, which broke the poetic silence he had kept until then. After 1953, state-supported translations made it known abroad, including an English version in 1961.
Who it is for
A long rhymed poem with calculated sound effects, which is best heard aloud; Tom Phillips translated it into English in 2021.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as a classic of Bulgarian Expressionist poetry, and studied by schoolchildren in the country.