Images of Sofia in Bulgarian Poetry in the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Centuries Cover Image

Obrazy Sofii w poezji bułgarskiej u schyłku XX i na początku XXI wieku
Images of Sofia in Bulgarian Poetry in the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Centuries

Author(s): Dorota Gołek-Sepetliewa
Subject(s): Bulgarian Literature, Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Theory of Literature
Published by: Instytut Slawistyki Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: Sofia; Bulgarian poetry of the 20th and 21st centuries; city motif; images of Sofia;

Summary/Abstract: This article is devoted to the image of Sofia in Bulgarian poetry in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The study analyses and interprets poems of four well-known Bulgarian poets: Zlatomir Zlatanov (b. 1953), Ani Ilkov (b. 1957), Edvin Sugarev (b. 1953) and Vladimir Sabourin (b. 1967). The starting point is a synthetic presentation of the genesis and evolution of the Sofia motif in Bulgarian literary works from between the mid-eighteenth century and the 1970s. The motif of the capital city initially functions in opposition to the rural theme. Urban space is a sphere of foreign Western European influences and threatens traditional patriarchal culture. The evolution of the city motif takes place in the context of the developing new literary trends and tendencies in the interwar period (including expressionism and avant-garde). Images of the capital city as a place where the bourgeoisie lives and where poverty and social injustice reign, come from literature entangled in ideological and political contexts (the leftist poetry of the 1920s).

  • Issue Year: 2022
  • Issue No: 46
  • Page Range: 1-19
  • Page Count: 19
  • Language: Polish