Bulgarian Folk Songs



Bulgarian Folk Songs  is a collection of folk songs and traditions from the then Ottoman Empire, especially from the region of Macedonia, but also from Shopluk and Srednogorie, by the Miladinov brothers, published in 1861. The Miladinovs' collection is the greatest single work in the history of Bulgarian folklore studies and has been republished many times. The collection is also considered to have played an important role by the historiography in North Macedonia.

Collecting and publication
The two brothers were interested in Bulgarian folklore. This inspired them to compile the collection. Dimitar was the first one to start collecting songs. He was visited by the Russian Slavist Victor Grigorovich in 1845, who advised him to begin collecting folk songs. In 1846, Dimitar promised to send some folk songs to him in a letter. He and his brother started to collect folk songs. In 1857 Konstantin took the collection they prepared to Moscow with the hope of publishing it there, but could not find a publisher. One of the main problems was that the materials were written down in Bulgarian, but with Greek letters. In Moscow, he received the encouragement of the Bulgarian students there. Vasil Cholakov assisted, providing him with songs, and taking a direct part in transcribing the songs taken down by the Miladinov brothers, in preparing for publishing their collection. The 660 songs were collected mainly between 1854 and 1860. Most of them by the elder brother, Dimitar, who taught in several Macedonian towns (Ohrid, Struga, Prilep, Kukush and Bitola) and was able to put into writing 584 folk songs from the area. Women recited most of the songs. The songs from the Sofia district were supplied by the Sofia schoolmaster Sava Filaretov. Those from Panagyurishte area, were recorded by Marin Drinov and Nesho Bonchev. Rayko Zhinzifov, who went to Russia with the help of Dimitar, was another collaborator.

In 1860 Konstantin addressed Croatian bishop Joseph Strossmayer, who sympathized with the Bulgarian people, with an appeal to publish the collection. Originally, the book was written using Greek orthography. He answered Konstantin's letter positively, but insisted the folk songs should be written in the Cyrillic alphabet. Konstantin transcribed the songs from Greek into Cyrillic. Its preprint was finalized in Đakovo and it was printed in Zagreb by Ante Jakić in 1861. The collection was dedicated to Strossmayer. In the preface to the collection, the brothers expressed their gratitude to Cholakov, among other associates. The book represents an anthology of 660 folk songs, but also folk legends, traditions, rituals, names, riddles, and proverbs. The brothers called the land they collected from as "Western Bulgaria", as they announced regarding the publication of their collection, because they disliked the name "Macedonia" since it was a Greek term.

Legacy
The collecting was well-received by its contemporaries - Lyuben Karavelov, Nesho Bonchev, Ivan Bogorov, Kuzman Shapkarev, Rayko Zhinzifov and others. The Russian scholar Izmail Sreznevsky pointed out in 1863 that the Bulgarians are far from lagging behind other peoples in poetic abilities. Elias Riggs, an American linguist in Constantinople, translated some songs into English and sent them to the American Oriental Society in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1862, Riggs wrote the collection presents an interesting picture of the traditions and fancies prevailing among the mass of the Bulgarian people. The collection also had an impact on the development of the modern Bulgarian literature. The collection has been published many times in Bulgaria. The second edition was published in 1891 by Dimitar's wife Mitra, already in the Bulgarian Principality. The third one was released in 1942, edited by literary historian Mihail Arnaudov. The fourth one was released in 1961, edited by literary historian Petar Dinekov.

In post-war Yugoslav Macedonia the collection was published for the first time in 1962 and afterwards in 1983 under the title "The Collection of the Miladinov Brothers", by literary historians Haralampije Polenaković and Todor Dimitrovski. The reference to Macedonia as "Western Bulgaria" in the foreword was removed. All references to "Bulgarian" and "Bulgarians" were replaced with "Macedonian" and "Macedonians". During the Yugoslav era, the original collection was unavailable to the public. After the fall of Communism in 1999, under the auspices of Dimitar Dimitrov, a Bulgarophile and minister of culture, the collection was reissued under its original title, which caused serious protests from Macedonian historians. As a result, the Macedonian State Archive, funded by the Soros Foundation, displayed a photocopy of the book and the text on the cover was simply "Folk Songs", the upper part of the page showing "Bulgarian" was cut off. Bulgarian scholars have accused their Macedonian colleagues of forging the original edition of the collection by deliberately deleting the word "Bulgarian". This Bulgarian argument has strong support in international academic circles. Although the book contains a number of songs in which the literary characters are Bulgarian, Macedonian researchers claim the "Bulgarian" designation appeared in the title shortly prior to the book’s publication, and it originally was titled "Macedonian Folk Songs". The collection's historical context and its authors' national identity have been disputed between North Macedonia and Bulgaria. Today in North Macedonia the pupils do not have the access to this collection in original. In March 2021, a shipment with the original edition of the book, intended for the Cultural Center of Bulgaria in Skopje, was not allowed on the territory of North Macedonia, which caused an official protest from the Bulgarian side.