"In my time – and I have often told my friends – it was easy to become a writer, because there were no writers. There was only Ivan Vazov and he stood out prominently among all the rest; everybody learned from him and he was the one who established the reputation of a writer. Everybody – no matter whether they had read him or not – would point to him and his work. He was the symbol of a writer and he had prominence in the eyes of all classes in society.“

This is what great Bulgarian storyteller Elin Pelin told his colleagues on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Two years later, in 1949, he passed away and entered the pantheon of the greatest Bulgarian writers. He has become a classic with his masterful short stories and children’s books.

At a cursory glance, there is neither much drama nor complex twists in Elin Pelin plots. A deeper look into his narrative however reveals a full-blooded and exuberant life of worldly wisdom, the philosophy and morality of the Bulgarian people. For anyone willing to know more about the Bulgarian peasantry, his short stories are the best way to start.

Elin Pelin was born in 1877 in the village of Baylovo, one among 11 children in a teacher’s family. In tune with the National Revival values, his father was very much bothered how to give his kids the best of schooling. The childhood and youth of Dimitar Stoyanov (the writer’s name of birth) passed in poverty. He went for studies in different towns and could not finish secondary school. However, the teenager was keen on reading. In 1897, aged 20, he already wrote a few worthy works.

 "I was so young when I started writing that I have forgotten the original motive for this kind of work”, the writer said at the end of his career. 

At the beginning, he was dreaming of something different – to become an artist. So he applied for the School of Fine Arts. He failed the exam, and took up writing instead. In 1897 Dimitar Stoyanov was “transformed” into Elin Pelin and created a few emblematic short stories such as The Windmill, Scourge of God, Temptation and Guest. But just лике other writers, he evaluates his works differently from readers. This shows in his last interview kept at the Bulgarian National Radio Golden Archives made on the occasion of his 70th birthday.

"Which of your works do you like best and why?”

“This is a question hard to answer. Mothers love more or even the most their children who are unhappy or plain. I should like to think that I love those works that readers do not pay attention to or admire”, the great writer admitted.

The simple stories told with love and a smile by Elin Pelin invariably highlight the theme of worthwhile values of human life. Dreams, love, sin and redemption, the bond with the land, as well as hard work are all present in the portrayal of peasantry created by Elin Pelin. Despite the tragic fates, his stories are never short of the hope of salvation and spiritual transformation. With an admirable simplicity the bard of the Bulgarian peasantry wrote about the fateful encounter of the old and the new in the patriarchal world of Bulgarians doomed to slowly disappear. With time, this traditional community model was swept by major changes triggered first by the bourgeois and later by the communist social systems.

At the end of his life, the author of Harvest, In the Field and Daydreamers made an attempt at a narrative about a world opposed to the patriarchal world void of the bond with the land and the smell of earth. In a recording from the Bulgarian National Radio Golden Archives the topic is the brigade movement in the years after the establishment of a pro-Soviet regime in Bulgaria. Back then brigades of young people worked to build a few sites of nationwide importance.

"Comrade Elin Pelin, you have written the short story The Sparrows of Aunt Doyna with a plot borrowed from the brigade movement. Please, tell us how you look at the youth brigade movement and its great success in socialist construction?"

“The brigade movement is of great importance for the young generation. It has built its relationship with the state and has created a feeling of collectivism opposing bad, selfish feelings. The brigade movement makes every true patriot rejoice.”

In all honesty however, Elin Pelin earned a place as a Bulgarian classic with his earlier work inhabited by a different type of characters: pensive, anxious, infatuated or amused. We remember their names from school: Angelinka, Hristina, Elka, the old Gerak, priest Sisoy and Blagolazh.

In 1949 Elin Pelin left this world to go “to the other” and join Grandpa Mateyko and hi other beloved characters.

English Daniela Konstantinova