Bulgarian poet Radoy Ralin, who died was at age 81, has been famous for his "hot-peppering" satire. Photo by Internet.
Radoy Ralin is one of many pseudonyms of Dimitar Stoyanov, born in the town of Sliven, on April 22, 1923.
He is a descendant of Ottoman-times chieftain Tanyo voevoda, a close fellow to Bulgarian Apostle Vassil Levski and Stefan Karadja.
After graduating law at Sofia University in 1945, Ralin plunged into an illegal anti-fascist activities such as drafting the bulletin "The truth of the anti-Soviet War", released July-September 1941, which led to his first imprisonment in 1942.
He participated as a volunteer in the last years of the Second World War.
In 1953 Radoy Ralin was among the founders of the first Bulgarian satiric theatre named The Hornet.
Working in many literature-bound and satiric dailies, scenario studios and publishing houses over the 40s-80s, he started publishing the Happy Man daily in 1992.
In the years before democratic chanegs in Bulgaria, in 1989, the state policy in the sphere of artistic culture and mass media was subject to strict ideological criteria. The totalitarian nature of the state naturally entailed censorship and management of cultural activities through administrative methods and decrees.
However, Bulgarian culture proved to be isolated from a number of processes and tendencies in the world cultural development. In the 1970s Bulgarian culture has started slow process of opening for the new developments in the world.
The Bulgarian writers, poets and literary critics had to "bind up" their artistic work with the communist ideology. Despite that authors such as Elin Pelin, Dimitar Talev, Dimitar Dimov, Elisaveta Bagryana, Dora Gabe, Nikolai Liliev, etc. and in more recent times - Valery Petrov, Yordan Radichkov, Emiliyan Stanev, Blaga Dimitrova, Alexander Gerov, Pavel Matev, Radoy Ralin, Georgi Tsanev, Petar Dinekov, Georgi Markov etc. created works of high artistic value.
Ralin's very first poems saw printing in 1931 on the pages of the children daily Sunrise, circulated in his hometown of Sliven.
Radoy Ralin is the author of numerous memory-stamped humorous poems and anecdotes, blending lyrics and satire, where "good and evil boil in the same dough."
He is fond of the works of poet Atanas Dalchev and prosaic Elin Pelin, all three writers being the voices of social consciousness of the day.
One of his most popular books is titled Hot Peppers, whose birth was "burned" in the Polygraph Plant in Sofia, but the book later gained worldwide popularity.
Radoy Ralin creates in all forms of satire - apostrophe, aphorism, satiric parabola - coining bunches of new words.
He is the author of satiric performances Devil's Mirror, Improvisation, No Guilty, The Golden Fleece, the movie comedy Incredible Story, Incident, New Year Gift, etc.
Radoy Ralin's works, signed by other pseudonyms of his such as Mladen Volen, Rali Dalilin, Rali K., Ralikor, Dimitar Rali, have been translated into as much as 37 languages.
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