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A Continental Battle
Anna Kaleva, a native Bulgarian, discusses the importance of national idenity in her home country's literature
Posted 26th June 2008 | Author: Anna Kaleva
From Issue 5 of Etcetera (Views: 251)
South-eastern Europeans today know they are truly part of the old continent. These are the nations that had to keep fighting to protect their European identity from when the Ottoman Empire took over in the fourteenth century until their liberation centuries later. An empire which indisputedly originated in Asia Minor, it took over the Eastern European region, ransacking its lands and ravaging its identity. Bringing with it a different religion, language and customs, the empire forced people to convert to Islam, and tried to suppress any flicker of hope that the retention of their own cultural identity could bring.
After many battles came victory, and after great victories came great stories. But the greatest stories are perhaps those that started with real belief and a burning desire to be victorious. To win is to allow a man to become who he is. The fuel for such desire comes from literature - from the poems and folksongs of the people. In this way, understanding Balkan heritage is about looking at the images painted for us by the words of many great men. Through it, you can breathe their breath, sweat their sweat and think their thoughts.
If you were Greek, and fighting to celebrate the historical greatness of your nation once again, then your ears will be ringing with the poetry of Rigas Feraios - ‘…Better an hour of free life,/ Than forty years of slavery and jail’.
If you were a Macedonian, who takes pride in the bravery of his people and the claims of having descended from men like Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great, then you will face your fate remembering your best friend’s words: ‘May the shot that kills you be a good shot’ (an Armotoloi phrase which represents the honour in one’s sacrifice and martyrdom).
If you were Bulgarian then your morals will be informed by the knowledge that "There is no power over those who are ready to lose their lives in the name of freedom and the good of humanity," as the poet Hristo Botev wrote.
Botev only lived 28 years but left a legacy of many poems which inspire Bulgarians today. His was a life lived with one sole passion – national identity. His most famous piece, about the hanging of Bulgaria’s bravest hero Vassil Levski, will never allow Bulgarians to forget the calibre of the men who fought and died in order to retain their collective identity.
Yet is it not a wholly European legacy? Why else would Lord Byron take up arms to join the Greek revolutionaries? Is it not because being continental means that every inch of soil you call your own has been fought over for centuries - each man’s struggle has been experienced by another at a different time. And on each new occasion, the words of those who have gone before become the strength to bring about the victory of those fighting in the present.
I intend to listen to the voices of my ancestors: I will be a Bulgarian in the 21st century and never stop trying to understand what it meant for Ivan Vazov when he wrote:
‘I am Bulgarian and strong
Bulgarian mother has born me;
beauties and goods so many
make my native land so dear.
I am Bulgarian and love
our mountains so green,
to be called Bulgarian -
is the greatest joy for me…’
Ivan Vazov (translation)
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