The Figure of the Old Bachelor in Bulgarian Literature

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

This text tries to answer the question whether the figure of the old bachelor manages to provoke the interest of Bulgarian literature. The focus of our attention will be different texts with different creation dates and genre specifics, and in the course of observations the literary history will be neglected at the expense of the formation of common problem cores that would help us (re)construct some of the literary biographies of the old bachelor. The first of them is laid on the motive for parting with the bachelor life. The stories “The Windmill” and “The Woman with the Golden Hair” by Elin Pelin, as well as the novel “The Adventures of Gorolomov” by Yovkov draw attention to those unusual events and/or circumstances that drastically overturn the usual bachelor existence. In the second biography, which we can distinguish (the novel “Uncles” by Ivan Vazov), the old bachelor arouses curiosity and interest in himself, on the one hand, because of his extravagant appearance, and on the other, because of his immersion in the role of a philosopher. Despite the specific differences of the literary-historical and socio-cultural contexts, the product of which are characters such as Boyanov and Kostov, it is not difficult to see that in both works the problem of the inferiority of the old bachelor’s life is brought to the fore.