IVAN VAZOFF (1850-) BY LUCY CATLIN BULL HE remote principality of Bulgaria does not attract a large share of the world's attention. But small butterflies may have great peacock's-eyes, with glintings and delicate gradations of color-inky blots too, and deep shadows! These are not only worth examining,- they may become in a collection a source of permanent enjoyment. And if life in Bulgaria, either from the moral or the material point of view, has ever so few phenomena that have a peculiar vividness not to be found elsewhere, then it is only a question of time before the world begins to feel the richer for them. That the rugged little country really abounds in poetic and picturesque elements, may be inferred from the fact that her strongest and most prolific writer has been able to confine himself, partly from choice, partly from instinct, to the treatment of life in Bulgaria, without forfeiting his claim to the serious consideration of readers in all parts of the world. In other words, nothing could be racier of the soil than the poems and romances of Ivan Vazoff, born in 1850 in the little town of Sopot, under the shadow of the Great Balkan. No book was ever more thoroughly and lovingly steeped in local color than his most widely read novel, 'Under the Yoke.' But his patriotism, poured out year after year in a cause that seemed utterly hopeless, takes a form so exalted as to raise him above the mere delineator of character and gatherer of specimens. Besides, an irresistible affinity felt in boyhood for writers like Béranger and Victor Hugo, could but have a happy effect on a nervous style, and a diction reminding the reader of the mountain torrents it dwells upon. Who shall say how far a scrupulous choice of words, and a keen ear for the harmonies of verse and prose, may not have tended to rescue the young revolutionist from becoming the ephemeral organ of a political insurrectiop? IVAN VAZOFF G Although it was from Victor Hugo that Vazoff drew the motto, "De verre pour gémir; d'airain pour résister" (Glass for sorrow, brass for courage), prefixing it to a volume of his poems, still the foreign influence only took the form of a wholesome infusion. Even in the seventies, when a few brave hearts were pushing the cause of emancipation in spite of their cautious countrymen, and when only the very rich could aspire to an education, Bulgaria had preachers of revolution whose eloquence was of no mean order, and the beginnings of a literature. For the men in exile and active warfare against Turkish oppression, who turned so readily from the sword to the pen, looking upon both merely as a means to an end, were nevertheless genuine poets, natural orators, and belonged to a race who in spite of the narrowing of their horizon through four centuries of suffering, could not forget that in past ages, under rulers distinguished for courage or learning, their realm had held a high place among the nations. Even Russia, at times the benefactor of Bulgaria, will always remain her debtor. For the language of that powerful neighbor is said to have been molded by missionaries of the Greek Church sent from Bulgaria not far from the eleventh century; and was perhaps in large part the gift of a country that possessed an alphabet and a written tongue, while the future empire was still in a state of semi-barbarism. The language so similar at the outset to Bulgarian has developed into a noble and unique instrument, which hardly any scholar in the coming century, aware that Russian abounds in works of importance, will think that he can do without. And although in enslaved Bulgaria the language could not escape degeneration,- although modern Bulgarian is less musical than Russian, and has lost the inflections the latter retains,- still it is not without dignity, and the nomenclature is almost enough to show that it may have a music of its own: the name for the range we call the Great Balkan, because the Turks have bestowed that name upon it, is Stara Planina. That Bulgarian comes very close to Russian is not always appreciated in Russia itself. At Moscow, in the summer of 1895, a young writer remarked to Vazoff, who had come with the deputation from Bulgaria that laid a wreath on the tomb of Alexander III., "What a pity that the inscription on the wreath is in Russian instead of Bulgarian!» "But it is from beginning to end a Bulgarian inscription that you see there," returned the poet, compressing into one quick movement the mingled pride and chagrin of centuries. The attar-yielding Valley of Roses, lying between the Stara Planina and the parallel range of the Sredna Gora, contributed a certain aroma to the new era that ended, less than twenty years ago, in complete emancipation from Turkish rule. It was there in 1848, in the free town of Calofer, clinging to the mountain-side, that the truly inspired poet and revolutionist Boteff was born; and as it happened, his fellow-poet Vazoff, born in the Valley of the Strema, attended school for a short time in the same place. A boy like Christo Boteff, ardent and high-strung,-destined to lay down his life for his country before reaching his thirtieth year,- could not have been brought up in surroundings more stimulating to the imagination. It was in a veritable garden of roses that his life began; and he can scarcely write without some mention of the mighty forest that lay so near. His birthplace, founded by the brigand Calofer and named after him, was one of the few places that by virtue of their remoteness had preserved a measure of independence. Unlike most Bulgarian towns and villages, it had at the centre no Turkish habitation; so that the poet's love of freedom, which was far from being local and national,— recognizing the effects of misrule not only in his own country, but in Russia, in Africa, indeed throughout the world, was taken in with the mountain air he breathed. The founder, Calofer, belonged to a distinct class called haïdouti or brigands (otherwise it is impossible to translate a word half-way between hero and highwayman), whose open hostility to the Turkish government compelled them to take refuge, oftentimes in Rumania, but in mild weather in the stupendous gorges and caverns of the Stara Planina. Boteff was neither one of the earliest nor one of the latest martyrs to the cause. He did not live to shudder at the massacres of the Sredna-Gora, which moved the Emperor of Russia, Alexander II., to come to the relief of Bulgaria, and his son, afterwards Alexander III., to take an active part in the campaign which in 1878 exacted her independence. Boteff's poem on the death of his friend Hadjy-Dimitre is remarkable for its unconscious foreshadowing of his own death, similar in all respects to that of the hero he brooded over with such intense affection: HADJY DIMITRE E LIVES, he lives! There on the Balkan's crest, HaLow-lying in his blood, he maketh moan Η The hero with a deep wound in his breast, The hero in his youth and might o'erthrown. He hath laid down his gun, in bitter woe Laid down the two halves of his broken sword; Helpless he lies; and at her harvesting XXVI-955 Beneath the blazing sky, the startled sun— A maiden somewhere in the field doth sing, And swifter than before the blood doth run. 'Tis harvest-time,- sing then your mournful staves, Ye melancholy folk that toil apart! Burn fiercely, sun, across a land of slaves! One hero more must die but hush, my heart! Who falls in fight for liberty's dear sake Can never die;-heaven weeps for him, and earth; Nature herself the woodland creatures wake Hymns in his honor; poets sing his worth. By day the eagle lends a hovering shade; The wolf steals softly up to lick his wound; The falcon, bird of battle, droops dismayed To see his brother stretched upon the ground. Night falls uncounted stars are in the sky; The moon looks forth; the woods and winds erelong Begin an ever-waxing melody,— The Balkan chants the brigand's battle-song. At last the nymphs, half hid in filmy white,- Downsliding, on the emerald turf alight, And gently near the sufferer take their seat. One binds his wounds with herbs and healing strips; A third has kissed him lightly on the lips, "Tell me, my sister, tell me only this: Where is Karadjata, my comrade dear? Where too the faithful company I miss? Then take my soul, for I would perish here." They clap their hands, that done they interlace. Day breaks, and ever on the Balkan's brow The hero maketh moan, his blood still flows, And the wolf licks his yawning wound. Lo, now, The sun bursts forth and still more fiercely glows! Dimitre perished, and his army were scattered and slain in 1868. The poem is dated 1873. In 1876 Boteff, with less than three hundred followers, arrived in the same wilderness, and fell in battle near the town of Vratza; where his head, which had been remarkable for its beauty, was displayed by the Turks on a pole. The enthusiasm and personal magnetism of Boteff were for a long time a distinct influence in the life of Vazoff. Of the two, Boteff was the more creative, original, and impassioned singer; yet the exquisitely finished verse of Vazoff is not without spontaneity. One of his most fervent lyrics was sung at the insurrection of Klissoura; and his range, embracing not only two large volumes of verse, but an astonishing variety of works in prose, is much wider. ( The year 1870 was a memorable one for Bulgaria. It was marked by her first step toward freedom; the Turkish government at last recognizing the constitution of the Bulgarian Church, and thus reluctantly paving the way for intellectual progress and political selfassertion. The year was further marked by Vazoff's first original poem, The Pine-Tree'; sent in October to the Perioditchesko Spisanie, or Memorial of the Bulgarian Literary Association, conducted by exiles in Rumania. The poet's father, a merchant in comfortable circumstances, had done his utmost to fit the boy for a business life, but in vain he had shown his energy chiefly in the verses he scribbled on the margin of the books of the establishment. The PineTree' is a powerful allegory, painting in a few masterly strokes the development and downfall of that ancient kingdom of Bulgaria to which a stunted nation looked wistfully back, and closing with a vivid picture of the victorious Turk bending in compassion over his fallen enemy. For it is matter of history that the Oriental monarch regarded with admiration the reigning tsar of Bulgaria, and after his retirement continued to show him every mark of respect and courtesy. In 1877 word came to Vazoff that his birthplace had been destroyed, his father put to death by the Turks, and his mother and brothers imprisoned in a monastery "in the heart of the Rhodope" (a region afterwards described in one of his principal works, bearing that title). His afflictions, far from diminishing his powers, seem only to have stimulated them; and were followed by the period of rapid production to which his best work belongs. It was at this time that he composed The Epic'-not strictly an epic-'of the Forgotten,' which a Bulgarian journal calls his most popular book. He also conducted the journal Knowledge; and undertook, in collaboration with Velitchkoff, a complete anthology of Bulgarian literature, besides beginning with him the task of translating into Bulgarian the literature of ancient and modern times. After the independence of Bulgaria |