Under The Yoke A Romance Of Bulgarian Liberty

This Elibron Classics title is a reprint of the original edition published by William Heinemann in London, 1912.

This book has been considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature. This forms a part of the knowledge base for future generations. We have represented this book in the same form as it was first published. Hence any marks seen are left intentionally to preserve its true nature.

Excerpt from Under the Yoke: A Romance of Bulgarian Liberty If there is a certain gratification in presenting to the English public the first specimen of the literature of a new people, that gratification is lifted above triviality, and grounded upon a serious critical basis, when the book so presented is in itself a masterpiece. I do not think that it will be questioned that Under the Yoke is a romance of modern history of a very high class indeed. That it should be the earliest representation of Bulgarian belles-lettres translated into a Western tongue may be curious and interesting, but the book rests its claim upon English readers on no such accidental quality. In any language, however hackneyed, the extreme beauty of this heroic novel, so simple and yet so artfully constructed, so full of ideal charm, permeated with so pure and fiery a passion, so human and tender, so modem and yet so direct and primitive, must have been assured among all imaginative readers. The story is one of false dawn before the sunrise. The action proceeds, as may gradually be discovered, in the years 1875 and 1876, and the scene is laid in that comer of Bulgaria which was not until 1886 completely freed from Turkish rule-the north-west part of Thrace-overshadowed by the Balkan on the north, and then forming part of the anomalous suzerainty of Eastern Roumelia. Pod I goto is the title of the book, and I am instructed that in Bulgarian the three words Pod Igo-to mean, literally translated, Under the Yoke. The whole story is the chronicle of one of those abortive attempts which were made throughout Bulgaria and Roumelia forty years ago, under the hope of help from Russia, to throw off the intolerable Turkish yoke of tyranny. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The Balkans offer classic examples of how empires imagine they can transform themselves into national states (Ottomanism) and how nation-states project themselves into future empires (as with the Greek “Great Idea” and the Serbian “Načertaniye”). By examining the interaction between these two aspirations this volume sheds light on the ideological prerequisites for the emergence of Balkan nationalisms. With a balance between historical and literary contributions, the focus is on the ideological hybridity of the new national identities and on the effects of “imperial nationalisms” on the emerging Balkan nationalisms. The authors of the twelve essays reveal the relation between empire and nation-state, proceeding from the observation that many of the new nation-states acquired some imperial features and behaved as empires. This original and stimulating approach reveals the imperialistic nature of so-called ethnic or cultural nationalism.

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