Poetry
Птици в нощта
Not translated into English
Nikolay Liliev · 1919
Synopsis
Birds in the night: the collection opens with a poem of memories, and most of the pieces, untitled, are identified by their first line: the first dawns, sickly gleams, a murderous and fatherly Paris, plains trembling in the light, the desolation of autumn, bitter winds, a mother taken by sleep, the wave of sadness, an old forest that weeps. The last poem turns toward this century of extermination.
Context
The author's first collection, it marks, according to Bisera Dakova, the last stage of Bulgarian symbolism; Ivan Radoslavov saw in him a future Bulgarian Baudelaire. Received with mixed feelings, it was reviewed by Botyo Savov in the journal Vezni and by Lyudmil Stoyanov, whose attacks of 1923 led this poetry to be judged feminine, anaemic and epigonal. A second collection, Lunni petna, followed in 1922, then a sea cycle in 1934, in Zlatorog.
Who it is for
A volume of short, melancholy pieces, to be read aloud; no French or English translation of the collection has been found.
Prizes and reception
The first collection of one of the masters of Bulgarian symbolism, whom Georgi Tsanev was still celebrating in 1932.