Poetry
Горски пътник
Not translated into English
Georgi Rakovski · 1857
Opening lines
Весела красна пролѣтъ бѣше
С̀ цвѣтя благоѫханна всешарна
Лѣпо земя ся вся зеленѣше
Милко наслаждаше вся животна!
Сластно развити явори бѣхѫ
Равны же сладкогласныя птичкы
Въ листове кычасты си гнѣздѣхѫ
Въ тьнкы высокы гладкы тополкы!
Merry, lovely spring was here
with fragrant flowers of every hue;
the whole earth was greening fair,
all living things were sweetly glad!
The sycamores stood richly in leaf,
and the sweet-voiced little birds
were nesting in the bushy foliage
of slender, tall and smooth young poplars!
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from archive.org
Synopsis
The Traveller of the Forests: a Bulgarian gathers insurgents to rise against Ottoman rule. Among them, Dragoï, from the village of Varbitsa, tells the story of a band of haiduks led by the voivode Petko: escaped from the prisons of Constantinople, they attack a dervish tekke in the forest of Factia, south-west of Bourgas, then take the road to Dobruja. The poem, left unfinished, comes with a long commentary by the author, who explains even the dervish orders.
Context
The author wrote the poem during the Crimean War, hiding near Kotel, and had it printed in Novi Sad in 1857. The poem presents the haiduks for the first time as a fact of national life. Its archaic language makes it hard to read, and Mihail Arnaudov showed, in 1937, that the author's notes on the Bektashi dervishes presupposed a knowledge of the order from the inside. Unfinished, the text nevertheless made its mark.
Who it is for
A long, unfinished poem, in an archaic language that baffles even Bulgarian readers; no French edition has been found.
Prizes and reception
The first Bulgarian revolutionary poem and the first literary text to celebrate the haiduks.