Reciting his poem An Interview in the Whale's Womb, Pavlov went on to say: „To enter the whale's womb you should prove you've got worth. There is 'worth' control… There I first met Valery Petrov, and say, Boris Hristov met me…”

„Hardly anybody else has stood up with such firmness in defense of free thinking, creative imagination and the autonomy of art in Bulgaria since the 1960s”, reads the beginning of the only book dedicated to Konstantin Pavlov written by another poet, Ani Ilkov.

Part of the April Generation of poets during de-Stalinization in Bulgaria, Konstantin Pavlov was a unique case of а divorce by mutual agreement with the communist political class. In fact he alone, engaged in a direct and relentless conflict with the regime of Todor Zhivkov.

This explains why not more than three verse volumes by Pavlov were released for a period of thirty years. He could not make a living writing poetry - his words and verses were fearsome. So, to make both ends meet, he started writing screenplays. And he soon emerged as co-author of some of the deepest and most original Bulgarian feature films - Memory for the Twin Sister, Hear the Rooster, Illusion, Mass Miracle (banned for screening), White Magic, Memory and Something in the Air.

Konstantin Pavlov's works were hard to digest, and communist critics described him as incomprehensible, gloomy and evil.

„They say 'enemy' without specifications: like a title. If specified the man might turn out a useful person. It is obvious I am someone's enemy. Similar to others I am not a passive consumer of adverse feelings, and emanate the same in response - from time to time”, the poet once said.

Konstantin Pavlov's first verse volume was followed by a ban that doomed him to silence for 12 long years. Despite his solitary position in Bulgarian culture his words were charged with groundbreaking insights. Konstantin Pavlov was after real understanding, not just hollow admiration and fame. For this reason he protected his poetry from political usage after the start of democratic changes in Bulgaria in 1989. In the years that followed, seven verse volumes by him were released, plus selected works in four volumes.

The great poet's “sweet agony” ended at age 75. What remains are his works dominated by an echoing silence. Let us finally quote one of his closest friends, poet Rumen Leonidov:

„We can safely claim today that Konstantin Pavlov has renewed Bulgarian poetry with the ease of a genius; that he swept the national theater and cinema with his enigmatic aesthetics - regrettably, he could not find there loyal interpreters to his messages. Suffices though that long before he was condemned by all, great Russian poetess Anna Akhmatova exclaimed: 'Konstantin Pavlov? He is the greatest Bulgarian poet I have ever read!”

English Daniela Konstantinova