The Weekly Skald (16/08/18)

Day 3,922, 11:30 Published in Norway Japan by Violence Seth

I've decided to make The Skald a weekly rather than spamming poets and writers everyday on your feeds. This week The Skald will have a look at a Bulgarian poet,considering Spain and Bulgaria are training in eNorway as of late.

EDIT: Thanks to hans erik for letting me know the actual situation. Forgive an old timey player, I'm still getting used to the new landscape of eRepublik.

On a side note Bulgarians in Spain are one of the largest communities of the Bulgarian diaspora.

After World War II, a small number of Bulgarian political emigrants fleeing the communist regime settled in Spain. Among those emigrants was a large part of the Bulgarian royal family, including the deposed child monarch Tsar Simeon II of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (or Windsor in England), who was granted asylum by Francisco Franco in 1951. Simeon II lived in Spain for 50 years, until his return to Bulgaria in 2001.

This poet was born during Ottoman rule in Bulgaria and holds the highest honorary title of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Academician... He is none other than... Drum roll please...

Иван Минчов Вазов or Ivan Vazov (1850 - 1921)



He was born in Sopot, Bulgaria (then Ottoman Empire). As a young man, in 1874, he joined the struggle for his country's independence. Bulgaria regained its independence in 1878 with help from the Russo-Turkish War and Vazov wrote his seminal piece, 'Epic of the Forgotten'. In 1917, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Later in his life Vazov was a prominent and widely respected figure in the social and cultural life of newly independent Bulgaria. He died in 1921.

Vazov Point and Vazov Rock on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica are also named after him.

Here is an excerpt from his masterpiece Epic of the Forgotten

Kocho or The Defence of Perushtitsa

The wild foes outside in their fury unbounded -
The church had by bashibazouks been surrounded -
Were fuming and shouting and firing hot lead
And, reeling in impotent wrath, drooping dead.
Their chieftain, with blood from his wounds freely running,
Observed the grim harvest around him, saying nothing,
A panicky fear left him gasping for breath
At the sight of these lowly folk sowing grim death,
Not begging for mercy but bullet-lead scattering.

Far off down the high road came suddenly clattering

Regular troops, moving swiftly along...
The sight in them heartened the foe, but among
The folk in the church it aroused consternation,
They sensed a now imminent castigation.
The battle abated... The gun-smoke cleared,
A voice calling out in the chaos was hear😛
"O brothers, the bashibazouks we resisted
Because they are cruel and desperate brigands...
But here are the Sultan's men. Let us give in!"
"No, better die fighting through thick and thin!"
"Hand over your weapons!" "No!" "What shall we do then?"
"Yield to them? No, we shall fight and subdue them!"
"Who is the traitor?" they cried in disgust.
"There'll never be parley between them and us!"

In this brief instance of his prose we can see his pure spirit scrambling for a deeper meaning within the chaos of conflict. I'll leave this to your own interpretations.

That's it this week for The Skald. Next week we'll cover Spain.

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Sethesin