Ask Wednesday: Another blogger on his Bulgarian cultural websites

By Morris Dean

It recently came to my attention that my grandson maintains a couple of blogs on Bulgarian culture. He has generously agreed to be interviewed about them.
    Christopher-Joseph Ravnopolski-Dean is an American-Bulgarian. If he had been born in the United States and lived here, I’d have said “Bulgarian-American,” but he was born in Sofia and lives there. He recently completed his freshman year at the American University in Bulgaria, in Blagoevgrad (some photos of which were included in my June 12, 2011 post, “Bulgarian travelogue concluded”).
    Our questions are in italics.

What is your mission with the Bulgarian literature and art resource websites?
    The Bulgarian Literature in Translation blog is an attempt to help readers interested in Bulgarian literature find Bulgarian literary pieces easily. The web offers Bulgarian literature translated into different languages, but most resources are scattered and hard to find. If you find a website dedicated to translated Bulgarian literature, the site will usually offer only the translations it has and won’t suggest other websites with Bulgarian literature. My blog, on the contrary, offers links to many websites with translations and thus facilitates the survey of enthusiastic readers.

Someone might argue that there are also print translations of Bulgarian literature.
    I wouldn’t object to that, but at this point my blog concentrates on web resources. When I am speaking about translations it might be necessary to clarify that I am talking primarily about translations in English. I also want to mention that besides links to and lists of translations, my blog will include brand new translations of classical Bulgarian works.
    The Bulgarian Art blog has similar goals, but I am still developing it. In the first place, I am trying to upload and to gather from the net large collections of works of Bulgarian masters. At a later stage I will upload more and more scans and photos of Bulgarian art. The blog is still tiny and at this point there are far larger digital galleries with Bulgarian art, links to some of which you can find on my blog.

How do you go about finding resources to link to on the websites? Is the process the same for both websites? If not, what’s different about them?
    I am doing the same thing anybody would do nowadays: I am using search engines and different search techniques. I know someone interested in Bulgarian literature or art will do the same and when they get to my websites, they will be happy I spared them time in their search.

What have you done, or do you plan to do, to make your websites known to people who would probably find them useful?
    I am sure people will find them useful and when someone googles “Bulgarian literature in translation” or “Bulgarian art,” he or she might encounter my sites. Time will show if they will be popular or not.

How did you come to be doing what you’re doing with these websites?
    Bulgaria has a strong and old literary tradition. I don’t know to what extent the world outside Bulgaria knows its virtues. Surely some specialists are aware of it, but how could laypeople appreciate it, if they don’t have access to it? This is why access to Bulgarian literature should be facilitated. One of the ways to do so is by devising lists with literature available online (as I do), available on print (as I will do), and uploading new translations.
    The same story with Bulgarian art, though when I speak about art I have in mind primarily old Bulgarian masters. There are many digital galleries with new Bulgarian masters, and I appreciate their art, but I want to work for those painters who are no longer able to popularize their works and have already gained fame in Bulgaria.

How long has the dissemination of Bulgarian cultural information been an interest of yours?
    I first started with the production of an almanac, “Bulgarian Deer”—a Bulgarian encyclopaedic almanac. It is hard to define what such an almanac is, but if it was to be of value, a great deal of time had to be employed. I published it in small print runs from 2005 to 2010, I think. The last almanac was the big boom and probably the start of my Bulgarian cultural dissemination career.
    I made detailed catalogues of Bulgarian books published the last year, of all major archaeological findings in Bulgaria, I translated old Bulgarian articles on music and appreciating music. I also gathered some Bulgarian scientific work: a Bulgarian linguistic article by Mony Almalech on the language of Bulgarians in Israel, an article on Biochemistry from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and an article on ornithology. I sent the almanac to some European and American universities in Europe. I didn’t think those audiences would really be interested, since they would expect something that specialized in literature. I didn’t get any responses. However, this was an important step for me, because I recognized some sort of a mission, namely popularizing Bulgarian culture.

I believe that your mother was christened in a small town where the uprising against the Ottomon Empire began about 150 years so, so I suppose that she has probably been a strong influence on your interest in Bulgarian culture. Would you tell us about that?
    My mother was baptized in Koprivshtica, where, as you say, in 1876 an important uprising against the Ottomans began. Just as a matter of fact, when the number values of the letters in the expression “Turkey will fall” (Turkia ke padne) are added, they sum to 1876. That fact made people very enthusiastic about liberating Bulgaria in that year.
    But to hold on to the subject, my mother always tells me that “the stone weights on its place”—a Bulgarian proverb meaning that people live the best in the background they originate from. She says that every time she leftBulgaria she felt nostalgia. She has never preached any lunatic passion for Bulgaria, she has only shared with me her experience of being far away. For my mother, it is hard to understand how people live far away from their countries. She is sentimental about Bulgaria. Many other influences and events influenced my interest in Bulgarian culture. It is hard for me to remember them and to identify them, but surely my mother’s love for Bulgaria has influenced my attitude.

You are twenty years old. Do you see this sort of interest continuing into your professional future? What profession seems to be taking shape in your vision of yourself in five or ten or twenty years?
    I am still not sure what profession I will choose after I graduate college and it’s hard for me to answer this question. I hope that my professional engagement won’t hinder my work in popularizing Bulgarian culture. This work isn’t only to benefit foreigners, by the way. Bulgarians themselves seem to have forgotten and to continue forgetting their original culture. For instance, Valentine’s Day is a wonderful holiday, but few Bulgarians know nowadays that in the past we had a special Bulgarian holiday dedicated to love. This was Sirni Zagovezni on the last Sunday before Easter fasting. On this day bachelors would throw a burning arrow in the backyard of their beloved. In the Village of Dramsha they had a less risky custom: they would make the traditional sirnishki fires. They would take a stick with a V-shaped end and on insert some burning hay, then they would tell the father of their beloved: “Dai mi dédo momáta, shto che ti zapálim bradáta! (Old man, give me the girl, otherwise I will set your beard on fire!)” Another important ritual on this day was asking for forgiveness: people had to forget everything bad and to start the fasting with clear hearts.
    Most contemporary Bulgarians don’t know about such traditional holidays. I don’t have much against Disney and Cartoon Network, but is sad to know that although we have wonderful and unique folk tales, young Bulgarian children know more about Pokemon than about Krali Marko (King Marko), Dete Golomeshe (Nakedstomach Kid), Dunya Guzeli (Turkish for the most beautiful woman), Hitar Petar (Sly Peter), the stupid woman, etc.
    Bulgarian culture has really a lot to give to the world, it has a great potential. In fact, to some of your readers it might be astonishing to know that Russia is to a certain extent an heir of the Bulgarian civilization. At the time when Russia was coming to birth, Bulgaria was already a long-existing, but collapsing empire. Russians accepted the Bulgarian alphabet, the Cyrillic alphabet, which was invented in Bulgaria. Russian rulers took the Bulgarian title “Tsar.” Russians developed politics similar to those developed in Bulgaria centuries ago. For instance, the panslavic movements are very similar to the goal of the first Bulgarian empire to dominate and to unite all local Slavic populations in the Bulgarian state. It is therefore easy to explain why Bulgarians, after being conquered by the Ottomans, created a halo around the name of Russia.

Did you write any papers for your university courses this past year that might have potential to be developed into articles for Moristotle & Co.?
    I have some really nice writings, but they have been posted to a site called turnitin.com, which checks whether you have plagiarized something. If I post my writings elsewhere, turnitin will show a 100% similarity. If this would happen during the semester I would be in trouble. Since I already got grade for the year, I don’t think it would be a problem, but I would still have to ask my instructors. If they agreed, I might revise a essay I wrote on the influence of media on language.

That sounds wonderful, Christopher. Please ask them!

One more thing: I’d like for readers to know that when they see “Кр.-Дж. Рав. Дийн” on your websites, what they are looking at is your name in Cyrillic.
    That's abbreviated; my full name in Bulgarian is Кристофър-Джоузеф Равнополски-Дийн.
    And here, for a special greeting to your readers, some classical Bulgarian music performed by my mother, Anna-Maria Ravnopolska-Dean:

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Copyright © 2013 by Morris Dean & Christopher-Joseph Ravnopolski-Dean

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