Poetry
Бѫлгарски народни пѣсни
Not translated into English
Dimitar Miladinov · 1861
Synopsis
Some six hundred and sixty folk songs, collected from village to village, mostly around Ohrid, Struga, Prilep, Kukuš and Bitola, with others from the Sofia region and the Srednogorie. The volume adds legends, customs and rites, games, riddles, proverbs and personal names. The pieces had first been noted down in Greek letters before being transcribed into Cyrillic for printing.
Context
The collection appeared in Zagreb in 1861, with Ante Jakić, under the title of Chansons populaires bulgares, thanks to the Croatian bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer, who had promised to finance it and wanted it printed in Cyrillic. The elder of the brothers had collected most of the songs; the younger, then a student in Moscow, transcribed them and looked for a publisher, and other collaborators contributed pieces. The same year, the two brothers were arrested in Constantinople, where they died in prison in early 1862. The title, the name given to the region and the book's affiliation remain disputed between North Macedonia and Bulgaria. The Yugoslav editions of 1962 and 1983 renamed it Зборник на браќата Миладиновци.
Who it is for
A substantial volume of more than five hundred pages, in Cyrillic, to be consulted by sections rather than read in one go.
Prizes and reception
Presented by the Library of Congress as the most important folklore collection of the Bulgarian Revival; reissued in Yugoslavia in 1962 as Recueil des frères Miladinov.