Narrative
Extracts from Notes on the Bulgarian Uprisings
Записки по българските въстания
Zahari Stoyanov · 1884
Synopsis
Notes on the Bulgarian uprisings: a former shepherd turned conspirator recounts the preparation and course of the uprisings of Stara Zagora, in 1875, and of April 1876. He blends into his own life story the letters, minutes and statutes of the committees, together with the accounts he gathered from witnesses throughout the country, and draws portraits of the leaders, Georgi Benkovski, Panayot Volov and Nikola Obretenov, in a simple, colourful language full of proverbs.
Context
The three volumes appeared in Plovdiv from 1884 to 1892, subtitled “Accounts of eyewitnesses, 1870-1876”. Igor Kaliganov sees in it at once an autobiography, a historical document and a literary work, written for ordinary poor people in the line of Paisius of Hilendar, and become a sort of national Bible. It contains the first historiography of the April uprising, and the Britannica praises the rarely equalled frankness of these testimonies on a history that was then very recent.
Who it is for
Three thick volumes, in a robust language; an English translation of extracts appeared in London in 1913, and no French edition has been recorded.
Prizes and reception
It has become a kind of founding narrative of the nation, and is regarded as one of the best books of Bulgarian literature.