„The Language of Chariots” in Exile Cover Image

"Езикът на колесниците" като невъзвращенец
„The Language of Chariots” in Exile

The Poetry of Hristo Ognyanov in the Context of the 1990s

Author(s): Lyubka Lipcheva-Prandzeva
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Bulgarian Literature
Published by: Софийски университет »Св. Климент Охридски«
Keywords: emigrant literature; post-symbolism; modernism; totalitarian aesthetics; spiritual emigration
Summary/Abstract: Even if written in Bulgarian, the poetry of the political émigré Hristo Ognyanov had remained practically inaccessible to Bulgarian readers for four decades. With the democratic changes at the beginning of the 1990s, his poetry has been republished in its entirety. The present essay reflects on the effects stemming from the deep cultural misapprehensions between the poet, his Bulgarian audience and the aesthetic searches of the context, which have again doomed his poetry to spiritual emigration. On the other hand, the inclusion of this “independent” parallel poetry in the historical narrative of the developments between the 1950s and the end of the 1980s reveals with the clarity of a litmus test the sites of “non-modernity” in Bulgarian totalitarian poetry.