Prominent Bulgarian Poet Vaptsarov Honored in Unique Display

Priceless relics from the legacy of renowned Bulgarian poet Nikola Vaptsarov are on display at the National Library in downtown Sofia Monday.

The exhibit, organized by the Library, the National Literary Museum and the Museum of Nikola Vaptsarov in Sofia, is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the poet's birth.

Vaptsarov's poems are translated in over 50 languages and published in over 40 countries. He is the only Bulgarian poet recipient of the honorary World Peace Prize, which received posthumously in 1952. He is also included in the UNESCO 2009 calendar.

The exhibit includes only original items such as 20 of Vaptsarov's most valuable notebooks and pads with his handwritten poems, pictures, documents, portraits and personal items.

Some of those unique objects are displayed in public for the first time. They include the “Grey Notebook,” with Vaptsarov's renowned “Motor Songs” and the “Blue Notebook,” which is a project for a second poetry book, with titles of 8 works, 4 of which remain undiscovered.

The visitors will also be able to see for the first time the “Sampa” notebook with 7 poems written by Vaptsarov on death row, the “Brown Notebook” with his masterpiece “History,” and the “Blue Marine Notebook” with his sailor travel notes.

Nikola Vaptsarov was born on December 7, 1909 in the mountain town of Bansko. After high school he attended the Marine Machine School in Varna (known today as the Navy Academy), and traveled as a sailor on the "Druzki" and "Burgas" ships, visiting Istanbul, Famagusta, Beirut.

Vaptsarov dreamed of studying literature, but because his family could not afford it, after graduating from the Marine Machine School, he held several blue collar jobs as a technician and mechanic.

In 1940, Vaptsarov began collecting signatures in the Bulgarian Southern mountainous Pirin region for the so-called "Sobolev Action" - a propaganda action lead by the then illegal Bulgarian Communist Party in support of the friendship and collaboration pact, offered to Bulgaria by the Soviet Union.

Vaptsarov was arrested over his activities and exiled in the village of Godech, near Sofia.

After the end of the exile, he initiated subversive activities against the German army in Bulgaria. The poet was arrested once again in March, 1942 and sentenced to death by shooting. He was executed in the night of July 23.

Vaptsarov's only book of poetry "Motor Songs" was published in 1940.

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