Bai Ganyo

Bai Ganyo
Author: Aleko Konstantinov
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2010-05-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0299236935

A comic classic of world literature, Aleko Konstantinov’s 1895 novel Bai Ganyo follows the misadventures of rose-oil salesman Ganyo Balkanski (“Bai” is a Bulgarian title of intimate respect) as he travels in Europe. Unkempt but endearing, Bai Ganyo blusters his way through refined society in Vienna, Dresden, and St. Petersburg with an eye peeled for pickpockets and a free lunch. Konstantinov’s satire turns darker when Bai Ganyo returns home—bullying, bribing, and rigging elections in Bulgaria, a new country that had recently emerged piecemeal from the Ottoman Empire with the help of Czarist Russia. Bai Ganyo has been translated into most European languages, but now Victor Friedman and his fellow translators have finally brought this Balkan masterpiece to English-speaking readers, accompanied by a helpful introduction, glossary, and notes. Winner, Bulgarian Studies Association Book Prize Finalist, Foreword Magazine’s Multicultural Fiction Book of the Year Winner, John D. Bell Book Prize, Bulgarian Studies Association Best Books for Special Interests, selected by the American Association for School Libraries Best Books for High Schools, selected by the American Association for School Libraries Best Books for Special Interests, selected by the Public Library Association

The Development of the Bulgarian Literary Language

The Development of the Bulgarian Literary Language
Author: Ivan N. Petrov
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2021-03-19
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1498586082

Ivan N. Petrov’s The Development of the Bulgarian Literary Language: From Incunabula to First Grammars, Late Fifteenth–Early Seventeenth Century examines the history of the first printed Cyrillic books and their role in the development of the Bulgarian literary language. In the literary culture of the Southern Slavs, especially the Bulgarians, the period that began at the end of the fifteenth century and covered the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is often seen as a foreshadowing of the pre-national era of modern times. In particular, the centuries-old manuscript tradition was gradually replaced by the Cyrillic printed book, which—after the incunabula of Krakow and Montenegro—was published in such centers as Târgoviște, Prague, Venice, Serbian monasteries, Vilnius, Moscow, Zabłudów, Lviv, Ostroh, and many others. Petrov shows how the study of old Slavic prints is closely linked to the processes that determined the emergence of modern literary languages in the Slavia Orthodoxa area, including the influence of the liturgical Church Slavonic language shared by the Orthodox Slavs, which was increasingly standardized and codified at that time. The perspective of a language historian brings new light to the complex and multidimensional issues of this important transitional period of Slavic history and culture.

The Story Smuggler

The Story Smuggler
Author: Georgi Gospodinov
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2024-02-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781399623117

'Some smuggle cigarettes, others alcohol - or weapons. Our contraband, being invisible, is more dangerous. Our contraband is undetectable by scanners. What we carry as concealed excess baggage is stories.' In this exquisite literary gem, Georgi Gospodinov, winner of the International Booker Prize, invites the reader on a winding journey through his own memories. He shows us a childhood under Communism, a particularly Bulgarian variety of melancholy, the freedom and thrills found in reading and writing, and the coming of age of one extraordinary writer. Ultimately, this profound, playful and deeply moving autobiographical text offers resounding proof of the power and importance of storytelling. TRANSLATED FROM THE BULGARIAN BY KRISTINA KOVACHEVA AND DAN GUNN

Who Owns the Past?

Who Owns the Past?
Author: Deema Kaneff
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781845452988

Post-socialist development in Bulgaria has led to fundamental changes in social life and political relations and threatened village identity. This study underlinessome of the fundamental processes at work across eastern Europe that explain the widespread ambiguity in regard to post-socialist reform.

Introduction to Bulgaria

Introduction to Bulgaria
Author: Gilad James, PhD
Publisher: Gilad James Mystery School
Total Pages: 48
Release:
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 4290244904

Bulgaria is a small, landlocked country located in Southeast Europe. It borders a number of other countries including Greece, Serbia, Romania, and Turkey. The country has a rich cultural heritage that dates back thousands of years, with influences from ancient Thracian, Roman, and Byzantine civilizations. Bulgaria has also been influenced by Slavic, Turkish, and other neighboring cultures throughout history. Today, the country is known for its beautiful landscape, including the scenic Black Sea coast, vast mountain ranges, and picturesque valleys. Bulgaria is also home to several world-renowned landmarks, such as the stunning Rila Monastery and the ancient Roman theatre in Plovdiv. Bulgaria has a diverse population of approximately 7 million people. Although Bulgarian is the official language, the country has a large number of ethnic minorities, including Turks, Roma, and Macedonians. The country has a tumultuous past, including periods of Ottoman and Soviet domination, but has made significant economic and democratic reforms since the fall of communism in 1989. Today, Bulgaria is a member of the European Union and NATO and has a rapidly growing economy, making it an attractive destination for business and tourism. With its rich historical and cultural heritage, natural beauty, and increasingly modern and diverse population, Bulgaria has much to offer visitors and residents alike.

A Concise History of Bulgaria

A Concise History of Bulgaria
Author: R. J. Crampton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2005-11-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1139448234

Bulgaria became a member of the European Union in 2007, yet its history is amongst the least well known in the rest of the continent. R. J. Crampton provides here a general introduction to this country at the cross-roads of Christendom and Islam. The text and illustrations trace the rich and dramatic story from pre-history, through the days when Bulgaria was the centre of a powerful medieval empire and the five centuries of Ottoman rule, to the cultural renaissance of the nineteenth century and the political upheavals of the twentieth, upheavals which led Bulgaria into three wars. This updated edition includes the years from 1995 to 2004, a vital period in which Bulgaria endured financial meltdown, set itself seriously on the road to reform, elected its former King as prime minister, and finally secured membership of NATO and admission to the European Union.

Bulgarian Literature as World Literature

Bulgarian Literature as World Literature
Author: Mihaela P. Harper
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2020-11-12
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1501348116

Bulgarian Literature as World Literature examines key aspects and manifestations of 20th- and 21st-century Bulgarian literature by way of the global literary landscape. The first volume to bring together in English the perspectives of prominent writers, translators, and scholars of Bulgarian literature and culture, this long-overdue collection identifies correlations between national and world aesthetic ideologies and literary traditions. It situates Bulgarian literature within an array of contexts and foregrounds a complex interplay of changing internal and external forces. These forces shaped not only the first collaborative efforts at the turn of the 20th century to insert Bulgarian literature into the world's literary repository but also the work of contemporary Bulgarian diaspora authors. Mapping histories, geographies, economies, and genetics, the contributors assess the magnitudes and directions of such forces in order to articulate how a distinctly national, "minor" literature--produced for internal use and nearly invisible globally until the last decade--transforms into world literature today.

East of the West

East of the West
Author: Miroslav Penkov
Publisher: Bond Street Books
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2011-07-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0385676018

A brilliant debut from a rising talent praised by Salman Rushdie, among others. A grandson tries to buy the corpse of Lenin on eBay for his Communist grandfather. A failed wunderkind steals a golden cross from an orthodox church. A boy meets his cousin (the love of his life) once every five years in the waters of the river that divides their village into East and West. These are some of the strange, unexpectedly moving events in talented newcomer Miroslav Penkov's vision of his home country, Bulgaria, and they are the stories that make up his extraordinary debut collection. In East of the West Penkov writes with great empathy about 800 years of tumult in troubled Eastern Europe; his characters mourn the way things were and long for things that will never be. But even as the characters wrestle with the weight of history, the debt to family, and the pangs of exile, the stories themselves are light and deft, animated by Penkov's unmatched eye for the absurd. In 2008, Salman Rushdie chose Penkov's story "Buying Lenin" (which appears in this collection) for that year's Best American Short Stories, citing its heart and humour. East of the West reveals the full realization of the brilliant potential that Rushdie recognized.

Wolf Hunt

Wolf Hunt
Author: Ivailo Pretov
Publisher: Archipelago
Total Pages: 688
Release: 2017-05-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0914671715

Published in 1986, three years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Wolf Hunt was the first novel to portray the human cost of Communist policies on Bulgarian villagers, forced by the government to abandon their land and traditional way of life. Darkly comic and tragic, the novel centers on an ill-fated winter hunting expedition of six neighbors whose history together is long and interwoven. The ensuing story takes the reader on a voyage of shifting perspectives that places the calamitous history of twentieth-century Bulgaria into a human context of helplessness and desperation.