Debelqnov biography of christopher
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Dimcho Debelyanov was born in Koprivshtitsa. He studied at the Plovdiv College for Boys, later at the Faculties of Law and History and Philosophy at the University of Sofia. He was mobilized during the first Balkan war, and since September enrolled in the School for Reserve Officers in Knyazhevo. At the end of January he volunteered to the Macedonian front. He died in battle near Demir Hisar on 2 October
Debelyanov’s first published poems () are suggestive of the strong influence Pencho Slaveykov had on him. The year was a turning point for the poet (then he and Dimtar Podvarzachov were involved in publishing Bulgarska antologiya). Debelyanov and Podvarzachov were at the centre of the literary circle Zveno which in published the short-lived but influential eponymous journal. The context of Zveno proved fruitful for the development of a number of intellectuals, writers and poets, such as Nikolay Raynov, Elisaveta Bagryana, Yordan Yovkov, Georgi Raychev, Konstantin Kinstantin
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BULGARIAN CLASSICS IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION
Like any other country with a small language, Bulgaria has some fine writers and poets who remain virtually unknown to the world because their work has never been properly translated. (It is an entirely different issue why Bulgaria, unlike other countries with small languages, has done little if anything to sponsor the translation of its authors). People like Pencho Slaveykov, Geo Milev, Nikola Vaptsarov, Elin Pelin and Dimitar Dimov – all fine poets and writers with dramatic life stories, could have become international household names had they written in German, French or Spanish. Instead, they remain on the unknown periphery of europeisk literature solely on the merit of the language they used.
Christopher Buxton, a retired English teacher and author of novels such as Far From the Danube, Prudence and the Red Baron, The Devil's Notebook and Surge, has taken upon himself to at least partially rectify this historical injust
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Poetry is very popular in Bulgaria; I am still very much surprised about the sheer amount of new poetry collections that are published on the small Bulgarian market every year by „regular” publishers, but also by authors themselves (self-published, or “Samizdat” as they say in Bulgaria – an expression that hints at the subversive tradition of “self-publishing” in the Eastern European countries). And if we add the countless number of frequently very young people who publish their poems in Facebook, on blogs, or who read their poems in public &#; poetry readings are also a phenomenon that has emerged mainly in the last years, and many of them are well-visited -, you can imagine that Bulgaria is a country where there is no shortage of poets &#; or of people who would like to be called “poet”, in this part of the world still a very prestigious epithet.
But poetry needs also readers, and English-speaking readers face a problem here: it is difficult to orient yourself, if you are not alr