''Under the Yoke'' ( bg, Под игото - ''Pod Igoto''), with subtitle ''A Romance of Bulgarian Liberty'' is a
historical novel by
Bulgarian author
Ivan Vazov
Ivan Minchov Vazov ( bg, Иван Минчов Вазов; – 22 September 1921) was a Bulgarian poet, novelist and playwright, often referred to as "the Patriarch of Bulgarian literature". He was born in Sopot, a town in the Rose Valley ...
written in 1887-1888 and published in parts between 1889–1890 in a magazine ''The Collection of Folk Tales'' and in a single book in 1894. It is set in a small town in Central Bulgaria during the months leading up to the
April Uprising in 1876 and is the most famous piece of classic
Bulgarian literature. ''Under the Yoke'' has been translated into more than 30 languages. The English translation was made in 1894 by
William Morfill and published by the London publishing house William Heinemann.
Plot
The tranquility in a Bulgarian village under
Ottoman rule is only superficial: the people are quietly preparing for an uprising. The plot follows the story of Boycho Ognyanov, who, having escaped from a prison in
Diarbekir, returns to the Bulgarian town of Byala Cherkva (White Church, fictional representation of
Sopot
Sopot is a seaside resort city in Pomerelia on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea in northern Poland, with a population of approximately 40,000. It is located in Pomeranian Voivodeship, and has the status of the county, being the smallest ci ...
) to take part in the rebellion. There he meets old friends, enemies, and the love of his life. The plot portrays the personal drama of the characters, their emotions, motives for taking part in or standing against the rebellion, betrayal and conflict.
Historically, the April Uprising of 1876 failed due to bad organization, limited resources, and betrayal. The brutal way in which the Ottomans broke down the uprising became the pretext for the
Russian-Turkish war
The Russo-Turkish wars (or Ottoman–Russian wars) were a series of twelve wars fought between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 20th centuries. It was one of the longest series of military conflicts in European histor ...
, that brought about Bulgarian independence.
The book has many autobiographical elements: Sopot is the writer's hometown, and he did take a personal part in the uprising described.
Reactions
Mary C. Neuburger has described the novel's coffeehouse scenes as a "social panorama" of Ganko's ''kafene'' (small Bulgarian coffeehouse) featuring a "parade of archetypal characters from a Balkan mountain town in Ottoman Bulgaria who drink bitter coffee, ruminate, and debate, laugh and observe, within a 'dense fog of tobacco smoke'". She writes that Vazov "skillfully paints a late Ottoman landscape" leading to the April Uprising of 1876.
Adaptation into films
''Under the Yoke'' has been twice adapted into films :
* 1952 : ''Under the Yoke'' (Под игото) by Dako Dakovski.
Sylvie Vartan
Sylvie Vartan (; born Sylvie Georges Vartanian; hy, Սիլվի Ժորժ Վարդանյան. on 15 August 1944) is an Armenian-Bulgarian-French singer and actress. She is known as one of the most productive and tough-sounding yé-yé artists. ...
, then a seven-year little girl, plays the role of a schoolgirl under tensely ''patriotic'' end-of-year examination.
* 1990 : ''Under the Yoke'' (Под игото) by Yanko Yankov.
[See ]
Yanko Yankov's biography
on IMDb A production in nine parts for Bulgarian television.
References
External links
*Text of
Under the Yoke' at the Internet Archive
1894 novels
Bulgarian novels
Ottoman period in the history of Bulgaria
Novels set in Bulgaria
Books about Bulgaria
Novels about revolutionaries
Bulgarian books
Novels set in the Ottoman Empire
{{1890s-novel-stub