On November 9, 1942, Bulgaria lost one of its brightest writers - the master of short urban novels Georgi Stamatov. One of his most popular novels is named Malkiyat Sodom (The Little Sodom), whose characters trade their ideals for the sake of their material wealth and prosperity. Another short urban story Paladini accentuates on the upsurge and the decline of the human talent. On November 9, 2015, few people know about writer Stamatov. Georgi Stamatov was once a celebrated Bulgarian author, but currently only a handful of Bulgarian readers know his works, which are not part of the Bulgarian school curricula. His absence is explained by the thought of another little known, yet very popular in the past Bulgarian author - Atanas Dalchev: “Each style is a compromise between individual and generally accepted forms of expression. If a given style is based on the first type of expression, it may become unacceptable to people. If the style is confined within the generally accepted forms of expression, it turns into a pattern and has nothing to do with the style”. Georgi Stamatov’s style belongs to the first type. It is not subject to the traditional types of expression and structure. It goes beyond the borders of the generally accepted norms. Sometimes his language is cynical. He shows irony towards human shortcomings which often flows into sarcasm and pessimism. Georgi Stamatov was born on May 25, 1869 in Tiraspol, Moldova, in a family of Bulgarian origin. He moved to Bulgaria in 1882, but his expression was influenced by the Russian lilting accent. Almost every sentence starts on a new paragraph. Thus, the author intensifies the action. His phrase is aphoristic and free from any details. His stories are filled with psychological analysis based on a compact description of the characters’ actions, rather than on detailed description of their actions. His expression is open and fair, yet bitter and fed with his own failures in life. He always named the problems and never talked about people behind their back. If he had issues with someone, he always talked openly with them. This virtue made Stamatov dangerous and unwanted interlocutor for those who were subject to his criticism”, one of his contemporaries Ivan Meshekov used to say.

His contemporaries describe Georgi Stamatov as a writer whose texts are not subject to any amendments. Stamatov’s private life had a strong influence on his works. He graduated from a military school and served as an officer. Later he studied law, became a judge and devoted himself to that profession. Many of the plots in his novels are based on these two fields. The memories of Bulgarian writer Vladimir Polyanov kept at the Golden Archives of the Bulgarian National Radio evidence about Georgi Stamatov’s personality and his work in the judicial sphere:

“A murder was committed in the city. The perpetrator was arrested and was about to face a trial. Georgi Stamatov was a judge under that lawsuit. He received a note on the eve of the trial. The letter was written by the person who controlled the city and whose people perpetrated that crime. Judge Stamatov was ordered to conceal evidence and suspend the case. On the following day Stamatov entered the packed court hall and was relentless. He read the warning to everyone and started the trial, although he was afraid of being murdered.”

Another main topic in Georgi Stamatov’s works regard the relations between men and women, bent through the prism of the failures in his private life. He suffered the break up with his wife Vera who left him and started living together with another public figure - politician Yanko Sakazov. In fact, when Stamatov learnt about that love story, he took Vera to her new partner himself. However, Vera was the one who looked after Georgi in the last years of his life. Their only daughter committed a suicide and Stamatov kept her portrait on his table for the rest of his life. This was how Georgi Stamatov lived his dramatic life.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov