Poetry
Кървава кошуля
Not translated into English
Rajko Žinzifov · 1870
Synopsis
In the Prilep region, the poem opens with a legend of King Marko, then lets a grandmother speak. At the door of a church, an old woman weeps, clutching a sack: her only son, Božin, betrothed to Grozda, set off for the Prilep market and was killed on the way by brigands. She waited for him three days and three nights, and all that was brought back to her was his body and a bloodstained shirt.
Context
The poem appeared first in the newspaper Narodnost, in 1868 or 1869, then as a pamphlet in Brăila, Romania, from Dimitar Panichkov and at the expense of Boyko Neshev, during a session of the Bulgarian Literary Society; the text is dated 22 July 1870 and bears the subtitle “a tale of Bulgarian suffering life”. Included in a school chrestomathy, it has been read by several generations. Critics have reproached it for often straying from its subject, and its author, who called himself Bulgarian, is also claimed by North Macedonia.
Who it is for
A narrative poem in Bulgarian, modelled on a folk lament; no French translation.
Prizes and reception
His best-known poem, long learned in Bulgarian schools, and still quoted on both sides of the border.
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