The Poetry of Nevena Stefanova, a Noted Bulgarian Woman of Letters

Abstract

By YURI VIDOV KARAGEORGE Nevena Stefanova, born in Sofia in 1924, is a well-established Bulgarian writer of fiction, literary criticism, essays and poetry. Her collection of poems Otkrovenia (Avowals; 1973) was received with marked enthusiasm by Bulgarian readers and is considered to be one of the best verse collections to have appeared in the early 1970s. "Avowals " chronicles the life's journey of the poet from the time she was a little girl sitting by a window, staring outside and fancying strange occurrences amidst the quiet falling of the snow. Among her reflections appear her acquaintance with the elements and forces of nature, her discovery of her womanliness both as a lover (Ophelian and Lady MacBethian) and a mother, and her slow acquisition of maturity when the contemplative poet (as a modern existentialist) faces the neant of contemporary existence. A number of selections in this volume achieve the most ambitious goal of a poet: they transmute subtle experiences, nuanced emotions and philosophical considerations into recognizable notions rendered through straight, clear and concise almost narrative speech. "Avowals" is composed of eleven sections. Most of the eight poems of section one, "Child's Album, " remind the reader of short, quick sketches or little scenes either from the four rather distinct seasons in Bulgaria or from everyday life. "Fresh Snow" depicts the peaceful fall of snow in the country and the subsequent change in the rural landscape when a child a mischievous spirit appears from nowhere and enchants the place with his magic bough. "The Restlessness of Spring" is a delightful characterization of midspring weather in Eastern Europe: the days when the wind blows, chasing remnants of winter wetness. "An Ordinary Morning" is an idyllic description of morning neighborhood activities in a Bulgarian city. "Contemplation" seems another version of ordinary actions at the beginning of a day; in this poem Stefanova calls the world "a beautiful child's drawing. " These first pieces are eloquent evidence of the young poet's marvelous sensibility and receptiveness to the outside world, as well as of the "resonance" of her inner fantasies. "Double Existence" is from the second section, "Fragments. " Its form of quatrain stanzas, twelvesyllable lines with a caesura on the seventh syllable (characteristic for this group of poems), immediately identifies it as poetry of her early period, when form was still of great concern to Stefanova. The language is direct, descriptive and confessional in feeling. The poem is a reflection on the discovery of the loneliness and duality of human existence. As a human being, the poet feels unsafe confessing herself to "no one. ' She is gnawed by the doubts of an idealist as to whether it is honest to lead her life in such a fashion, vacillating between "the dirty reality" of everyday routine and that other world of dreams and expectations. The imaginary world is infinitely more appealing to her, for everything in it is a promise, bliss. The second and third stanzas are similar in inspiration to Baudelaire's "L'invitation au voyage, ' in which the poet projects a vision of an ideal world, one to be found and escaped into at the termination of a voyage.