In 2018 we celebrate 125 years since the birth of great Bulgarian poetess Elisaveta Bagriana (29 April 1893 – 23 March 1991). Sofia’s City Library has unveiled the “I – Bagriana” exhibition as part of the Go to School at City Library campaign, aimed at attracting young people to literature.

The first years of Bagriana’s life passed in a very patriarchal period of Bulgarian society and its women in particular. So, the works of the poetess expressed the impetus of the new generations of Bulgarian women to equality, freedom, full life and worthy social status. Her first book of poetry had it all gathered at one place and was named after the two major verses inside – The Eternal and the Holy /1927/. Those represent the symbolic images of the Woman – a person, a mother, loved, excited and suffering.

Writer Nayden Valchev from the Union of Bulgarian Writers and a long-year friend and a colleague of Bagriana’s said: “We ‘are visiting’ one of the brightest figures of Bulgarian literature, the greatest poetess of this country. During his forced stay in a village due to the WWII bombings of Sofia, Nayden Valchev used to read the big names of our poetry and would stare into their photos in the papers. Elisaveta Bagriana was one of those.

“I would never suspect that a few years later I would end up as a literature associate of the Septemvri Magazine, the Poetry Dept. – i.e. right next to her desk. We spent 20 years there together,” Nayden Valchev recalls. “I saw, heard and learnt many things there. She used to read, a pencil in hand, and showing special respect to each author, without imposing her own opinion… Young people and their attitude were her great interest – the new things they brought with them. They also knew the person in front of them and had that necessary and natural respect that we all learnt from…”

Bagriana used to tell the story of becoming the first Bulgarian ever to fly to Paris at the dawn of passengers’ aviation. However, most of the travelers refused to get on the plane on the way back, as some accident had occurred at that time and the poetess had to fly to Sofia alone. Mr. Valchev further describes how Bagriana reacted to the news on Kennedy’s assassination: a group of prominent literature figures learnt about that while sitting around a table in a renowned Sofia restaurant:

“She just left the fork and knife aside and didn’t touch them again. Her face got pale and she said: ‘I am afraid for the future of mankind!’ Despite being the fighter who wasn’t afraid of anything, her heart registered such major shakes, which accompanied her days – white and black.”

Nayden Valchev also recalls the final days of the poetess, who died in an elite nursing home in 1991, at the age of 97:

“We visited her with my wife. She got happy, hugged the flowers and her hands were so thin. Her fingers were cold. I turned her ring back ti its place and she said: ‘My Alexandrite, the ring of loneliness’. However, she was never alone. When Alain Bosquet released an anthology of the 100 best verses in the world, Bulgaria was presented by her work – she was together with them, among those 100 top poets worldwide.”

Bosquet’s anthology was only part of the recognition that Bagriana received in her lifetime and post mortem. Her verses have been translated into 30 languages and published in France, Russia, Romania, Italy, Sweden, Poland etc. Her career was long and fruitful. Her last book of poetry – On the Shore of Time was released in 1983, when she was 90 years old and 56 years after the first one. However, she preserves the melody of her verse and her inspiration till the very end.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev