Novel
The Iron Candlestick
Железният светилник
Dimitar Talev · 1952
Synopsis
In 1833, in the wake of a great plague, Stoyan Glaushev leaves his village of Grantche after unintentionally killing the bey's greyhound, which was attacking his dog, and goes down to Prespa. A helper in a coppersmith's workshop, he becomes master of the guild thanks to Sultana, last heiress of the Hadji Serafims, whom he marries. Their son Lazar, shaken by the words of a monk from Rila, rises up against the bishop's Greek vicar for the sake of a Bulgarian church and school.
Context
Begun in the early 1940s, with fragments appearing in 1944 in the newspaper Zora, the novel was completed in Lukovit, where the author and his family were under house arrest; it was published in 1952. It opens a tetralogy continued by Ilinden in 1953, Les Cloches de Prespa in 1954 and J'entends vos voix in 1966, and by itself covers thirty years, from 1833 to 1864. Prespa, where the action takes place, is an invented town modelled on Prilep, the author's native town.
Who it is for
A sweeping novel, to be taken in order, with the three following volumes read afterwards; it has existed in English since 1964. No French edition has been located.
Prizes and reception
On the curriculum for the eleventh year of Bulgarian secondary school, and included among the texts for the maturity examination.
Sources for this page 14
The pages consulted to check this page.