In January 2005 Bulgaria will commemorate the 110 th anniversary of its
great poet Geo Milev (1895-1925). He left a deep trace in Bulgarian
culture with his poems, essays, poetic translations and ceaseless efforts to
acquaint his fellow-countrymen with the modern trends in European
literature and art. Put to trial for his poem "September", he was
subsequently treacherously murdered by the military regime of his time.
Geo Milev - engraving by Max Metzger
PLEIN D'ARDEUR
The name "Geo Milev" has been present in my life since
my early childhood.
It was pronounced rarely, but those evenings, when my
father spoke about him, were always filled with anxiety. My
father (an associate of the poet by correspondence as a
contributor from the small town of Haskovo to Geo Milev's
magazines) would begin with a heavy sigh and end invariably
with the words: "He was burnt alive at the Police Headquarters in Sofia".
These words evoked frightful visions in my child's mind: whirling flames of fire, tragically
writhing arms, a burning forehead with black ashes falling over it. Years later the legend of this
death was dispelled by the true, but not less disturbing facts - Geo Milev was barbarously strangled
by officers-executioners in the basement of the army barracks.
He was killed in the spring of 1925, already having been recognized as one of the great modern
poets of Bulgaria.
Where does Geo Milev come from?
Originally, from a patriarchal family - he is the son of Milyo Kassabov, an esteemed book-seller
and publisher in the town of Stara Zagora. After that his thirst for knowledge led him to Germany
where he got in touch with the refined world of modern European literature and art. He studied
philosophy at the University of Leipzig and later improved his knowledge of the English language
and literature in London. There he met the exiled Belgian poet Emile Verhaeren, who - impressed
by the temperament of the young Bulgarian poet - exclaimed: "Vous etez plein d'ardeur!" (You are
fervour itself). Then again in Leipzig, but the raging First World War forced him to return to
Bulgaria in 1915. And here — for a brief period of time — he devoted himself to astounding
activity — he translated and published poems by Malarme, Demel, Verlaine, Verhaeren, Nietzche,
published poems and essays of his own, set up a drama company.
But this upsurge came to an abrupt end when he was called to the ranks and sent to the front. In
a battle near Doiran, Macedonia, the young poet was gravely wounded by an enemy shell, losing his
right eye and part of his skull. This tragic event was to mark not only his life, but also his formation
as a writer with a strong sensitivity to the sufferings and the longings of the oppressed. The fatal
blast at the battle field which turned his skull (in his own words) into "a blood-stained lantern with
shattered windows” destroyed his poetic world of quiet contemplation and invisible inner
reincarnations. That is how the rebellion, the fury, the frantic contempt of death were born in the
heart of the poet.
Having seen death face to face, he stopped fearing it. He had already stepped beyond the line of
life and was not restrained any more by the chains of self-preservation. He had acquired the
absolute inner freedom of a man, to whom nothing could be more frightful than what he had already
gone through. Such a man cannot keep silent at the humiliation of human beings. In the days
following the September uprising of 1923, the poet watched with his single horrified eye — or with
his keen inner eyesight — the new national tragedy. Everything around him was shaking, but he
kept his spiritual balance, the stoic calm of the doomed.
In the post-war years and at the time of the tragic events in Bulgaria (1919—1925) Geo Milev
created his most mature works — his books of poems "Cruel Ring", "The Icons are sleeping", "A
Liturgy for the poet R K. Yavorov", his prose-poems "Ugly Prose" and "A Little Expressionist
Calendar" and finally his masterpiece, the epic poem "September", dedicated to the popular uprising
in 1923 and to its cruel suppression. He compiled several anthologies of European and Bulgarian
poetry. He founded and edited the magazine Vezni (Scales), which was to become the platform of
Bulgarian modernism. In 1924 he started a new magazine — Plamak (Flame), which left a blazing
trail in the history of Bulgarian press with the outspoken polemic articles of the editor against the
obscurantism in Bulgarian politics at that time.
The authorities, powerless to stifle his voice and furious at his poem "September", did not
hesitate to issue an order: Geo Milev is to be arrested and thrown into the hands of the ominous
Section 3 of the Ministry of War. Alongside with hundreds of other intellectuals and public figures,
he found his tragic death at the age of thirty.
In deep distress and dismay the writer Anton Strashimirov pronounced his famous words about
Geo Milev and his fellow martyrs: "This bloody pillar of brilliant names will keep terrifying the
coming generations".
That outcry of a deeply wounded conscience still resounds in the sky of Bulgaria.
Nicolai Hristozov
NIKOLAI HRISTOZOV was born in the town of Dimitrovgrad in 1931. He has a degree in
philology from the Sofia University. He has published 20 books of poetry, prose and has
translated authors like Pablo Neruda, Vladimir Nabokov etc. Winner of many literary awards
among which the State Award for Literature and Art, the Sofia prize for poetry, the Award of the
Bulgarian Translator's Union, The Golden Pen award of the Union of Bulgarian Journalists. His
works have been translated into English, Spanish, French, Russian and other major European
languages. Poems by Hristozov have been translated by the American poet William Meredith.