The first period
The first book of science-fiction to appear in Bulgaria was published in 1880. It was Jules Verne’s Around the world in 80 days. Twenty five years later most books of this author had been published, as those of Herbert G. Wells, Andre Lory, Mora Yokay, Edward Belamy, Jonatan Swift, Paolo Montegazi and other writers of the style. Somewhat later were Publisher fantasy Works by Jack London and Edgar Allan Poe.
The first Bulgarian story of science-fiction has been written in 1899 by Ivan Vazov and its title was “The last day of XXth century”. In this story one describes a trip of the Bulgarian king through the city of Sofia (Bulgarian capital city) which, in the future, has arrived at an “enormous” population: 350 000 habitants! Sofia has developed much and shows buildings and beautiful palaces, paved streets and beautiful gardens. Conversations at a distance from the king’s palace are carried through a “phonograph”, cars move driven by steam machines. The only realized prediction of the author was the return of monarchy, as the royalist party has won the 2001 elections and the Bulgarian king Simeon, exiled in Spain since 1948 (he is cousin of the Spanish king Juan Carlos) came back to take the Prime Minister office.
The first science-fiction novel has been written by Ilia Iovchev and published in 1900. Its title was A view of the existing and future progress realized by the eyes of the descendents.
“Argus” was the first publishing house not only in Bulgaria, but in the world, to be dedicated specifically to the publishing of science-fiction and fantasy books. It has been set up in 1922 by the writers Svetoslav Minkov and Vladimir Polianov. Deplorably the publishing house could not achieve its purpose and only two books were published before the publishing house closed. Nevertheless, the fact it existed is still remembered and left a mark on the style in the country. Seventy years later, in 1992, was set up a new publishing house “Argus”, still existing now.
Development of Bulgarian science-fiction and fantasy may be divided into three periods: from 1899 to 1939, from 1956 to 1989 and from 1989-1990 until now. In relation with these three periods, Bulgarian critics consider that SF and fantasy writers may be classified as “precursors”, “classics” and “young ones”.
The first period, going as far as the beginning of the Second World War, one may mark Svetoslav Minkov and Vladimir Polianov, who developed the “devilish fantasy” style. Proper science-fiction is represented by Georgui Iliev, author of two novels and Emil Koralov, who wrote thirty one. At this time, the classical writer Elin Pelin wrote two fantastic novels for children. It is interesting to note that Minkov’s and Pelin’s books have been frequently reprinted as far as in the year 2000 and will probably again be reprinted in the future, as for “diabolic fantasy” and fantasy, time has no meaning.
Gueorgui Iliev and Emil Koralov, whose books of science-fiction appear now much naïve and ridiculous had in their time many readers and they were noted above other writers of more little or no importance at all.
The second period
The second period began at the end of the Second World War and lasts until 1989, at the end of the communist regime installed by the soviet army on September the 9th in 1944.
Since 1948 has been established in Bulgaria a new “Writers’ Union”. To be accepted in it, it was mandatory to show faith in the Marxist ideology and the union’s president was obligatorily a member of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party. When those who stayed out of the “union” could only dream of having a book published, the members got many privileges, without any direct relation between the quality and the number of the books printed at this time. This is the main reason why most of the books, in any style, published in this period, have no real transcendence, exception given for those of Dimitar Dimov, Anton Donchev, Yordan Radichkov, Pavel Vejinov and a few other. These books have a good level, but they are works about historical themes and, when they do not loose their value, they do not belong to the genus here referred to.
After Stalin’s death in 1953, the totalitarian regime in Soviet Union loosened its grip, and the same happened in Bulgaria. In the Soviet Union appeared the first books of the “new” science fiction, resuscitated after a long silence, and the same books were sold in the Russian bookshops in Bulgaria (at this time, it was mandatory for every Bulgarian to study and speak the Russian language and Russian bookshops were plenty in each city). One must note that at this time (until 1956) publishing science-fiction works was prohibited in Bulgaria because no considered as a serious literature and, also, because it could not coincide well with Marxist ideology dogmas. But Russian science-fiction writers escaped this prohibition, so they began to write books where they described high technology soviet weapons and machines able to destroy entirely capitalism or novels where they described the definitive victory of communism on Mars or on another planet, or books intended for diffusion of Marxist ideology throughout the Galaxy as a universal system.
For this reason, one must consider as a miracle that, at this time, appeared science-fiction books from Russian writers Alexander Belyaev and Iván Efremov, which, for the time, had a quality more than respectable, to the point that some of them have not lost their strength.
In 1956 was published in Bulgaria the first science-fiction book since the Second World War, breaking a silence of eighteen years. The author was Bojidar Bojilov, who at this time has an important position in the “Writer’s Union”. The book’s title was A Bulgarian rocket’s travel to the Moon and the contents may be considered as much deplorable; it was a crossway between the worst soviet science-fiction and a poor imitation of the known novel of Jules Verne. But one cannot hide the fact that this novel has been the first bird to fly over the Bulgarian science-fiction’s horizon since the end of the War. In 1958 appeared The atomic man, by Liuben Dilov (secretary of the WU) and The lizard from the ices, by Petar Bobev (member of WU). For the times, these books had a satisfactory quality. Liuben Dilov showed that he was a very fecund science-fiction writer and has written until 2003 twenty eight science-fiction novels. His merit is that, from his position as WU secretary, task that he kept until the 80s, he obtained a partial loosening of the Marxist ideological control and of the censorship operating in every publishing house, even if he could not eliminate it completely. His novel The way to Ikar has been published in sixteen countries, Japan included. At the present time — he is 80 years old, sick and has stopped writing — he is considered as Second period Bulgarian science-fiction’s patriarch.
In 1968 the wonderful writer Pavel Vejinov wrote a novel which sits between science-fiction and fantasy, under the title The blue butterflies, a work which acquired quickly the status of a style’s classic in Bulgaria. As for Dilov’s work, it has been translated and published in various countries, France included. Pavel Vejinov wrote later five other science-fiction books, but none better than the first one. Before his death, three movies based on his works have been filmed.
In 1976 were published the books of Vesela Liutzkanova, The cloningos, and Velichka Nastradinova, My grandmother the witch, with a respectable quality, which allowed them to be traduced into Russian, Polish and Czech. One must note that these two writers also occupied important positions in the “WU”.
In 1968, the soviet publishing house “Mir” began to publish the series “Foreign Fiction” which included science-fiction works from writers of different countries, mainly United States ones. At these times, the reader lover of the style became mad wanting to buy these books printed in very little quantities. Nevertheless, at these times, the dominant communist ideology didn’t allow the publishing of anti-utopian books (which could have been prejudicial to the Marxist ideology) or books showing future models differing from orthodoxy or wars in space, fantasy and terror. In those times was published preferably “hard and scientific” fiction. As a loyal satellite, Bulgaria followed the new Russian example and Bulgarian publishers began to publish the books which showed the accepted ideological profile, as Isaac Asimov’s (I robot), Arthur C. Clarke’s and Ray Bradbury’s. Fahrenheit 451 was shown as a model of what would be the future if capitalism stayed as a dominant social system.
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They began to publish books from Stanislaw Lem (Solaris) and the brothers Arkadi and Boris Strugatski (How difficult it is to be God). The brothers Strugatski’s books were written in a very interesting way, and looked free from ideological dogmas or may be they had invented a way to avoid them. The fans of the style in Russia and Bulgaria had begun to translate books coming through the “iron curtain” and these manuscripts were copied in a primitive way and passing from hand to hand. In the seventies the communist Bulgarian regime continued to liberalize, in a process at the margins of the anticommunist Czech rebellion in 1968; thanks to which appeared in 1979 “Galáctica”, the first publishing house entirely dedicated to foreign science-fiction They began to print monthly books of writers from France, England, Germany, Italia, Japan and United States and, of course, from all satellite countries of the soviet bloc. Nevertheless, with the exception of Jorge Luis Borges, writers from Latin America and Spain remained unknown and the redactor of this article can tell that the same stays true today. In those years, in Bulgaria, the established rule was: “one may read what one wants to read, but one may not write in the same way”. Writing was still suspended to the soviet model’s restrictions.
Since the year 1970n the Bulgarian reviews “Cosmos”, “Science and technical” and “BTA-Technical” began the monthly publication of stories of science-fiction from various countries; the same happened to the weekly technical periodic “Órbita”. In 1973, in the large cities of the country, began to form clandestinely fan groups of the style. In 1976 the security agents of the State remarked that these groups were forming a potential peril for the established system, but, in place of reprisals, decided to canalize the movement by way of the “Central Committee of young communists, or COMSOMOL” and, the same year, in the city of Sofia, was established the first club of science-fiction, where people could meet under the supervision of one or more agents of security; thanks to this, the service obtained information about what was told and which type of discussions ware exchanged.
In 1980, the periodical “Órbita” organized a yearly competition of science-fiction stories at national level. The sic awards organized were decided by a jury, and the same jury soon later began deciding which young writers merited to be published, even if they were not members of the “Writer’s Union”. The new writers began to seek privately relations with the members of this jury and some succeeded, obtaining the publishing of their first book. It wouldn’t be smart to mention which writers took part in this jury, but I can tell that even if they pretended to keep for themselves only the fame and the publishing of books, it had been a step forward which allowed a few young writers to go beyond the barrier and see their works published.
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From this period one can note the books of Agop Melconyan, Petar Kardjilov and Liubomir Nicolov. One can note also the stories of Alexander Karapanchev, who could have a book published in 2004. Thanks to God, the writer of this article began to write science-fiction tales in 1986 and, that way, avoided many humiliations, even if I submitted my first book one year later to a government publishing house, where it “slept” three years long... and finally was not published because it didn’t fulfill the ideological requisites of the times. These doctrinal rules were yet completely out of date, but kept being applied with an incomprehensible inertia. What I could obtain was the publishing of six tales and a national award received by miracle.
Between the years 1982 and 1990, by the way of the Central Committee of the “COMSOMOL”, were created some reviews dedicated to the style, as “FEP” (Fantastic heuristics and prophecies), “Fantástica” (Fiction) and “Fantastichni Istorii” (Fantastic Stories); at the same time began a bulky publication of science-fiction tales in the other reviews and periodicals.
Ivailo Runev, noted bibliographer of Bulgarian science-fiction, a chemist by profession, dedicated the free hours after his work to search in the central library of Sofia with the goal to discover every material related to the style. Until his death he discovered 482 names of Bulgarian writers in science-fiction, fantasy and terror. Unfortunately, after his death, most of his work has been lost. The little part kept was used by the Russian bibliographer and writer Evgueni Haritonov as a starting point for his own researches. With help from this article’s author and three or four other people, he achieved a bibliography of Bulgarian science-fiction, fantasy and terror for the period 1899-2003 and, in 2004, this bibliography has been published in Bulgaria in the Russian language by the “Argus” publishing house. In the preparation of this bibliography, we had taken the decision to publish only the names of writers who had more than one published tale in reviews or in an anthology or had published at least one book, and not include stories which appeared in newspapers, because, for us and for Haritonov, it was impossible to repeat the gigantic work realized by Runev. That way, the number of Bulgarian science-fiction, fantasy and terror, writers for the period 1899-2003 abated to 176.
The third period
The third period began in the years 1989-1990, after the fall of communism in Bulgaria, and lasts to the present days. It is characterized by the creation of new writer’s unions, thanks to which the old powerful institutions completely lost its importance, even if it still exists. In the “Writers Union” a few old people meet to remember how they published their books with 50 000 copies at each issue and nobody cared that they remained unsold in the bookshops and were destroyed to recover the paper pulp or sent to garbage because nobody bought them. Because then what was important was that the government paid, and paid well, its loyal servants.
At this period appeared many private publishing houses and fifteen from these began to publish works of science-fiction, fantasy and terror. For the first time the readers fans of the style could feel happy because in the bookshops appeared monthly more than thirty new science-fiction titles. The Russian bookshops quite disappeared and in the city of Sofia there remained only five of them. It was no more mandatory to learn and know the Russian language and the new generation began to learn English by their own will. Were created fantasy and terror and books of this style became much in vogue in Bulgaria. On the other side, if in Bulgaria were published monthly between twenty and thirty science-fiction and fantasy books, in Russia they began to publish more than one hundred. The competition between private publishers became sharp and in 1995 the market of books dedicated to the style was saturated, and the circulations began to dwindle. Stephen King’s books began with printings of 20 000 copies and declined to reach the number of 1500.
Between the years 1995 and 1996, there has been in Bulgaria a terrible economic crisis. Salaries fell to 20 dollars and pensions to 5. Inflation grew to alarming indexes and, as the Bulgarian economy was linked to the ex-soviet one and couldn’t find new markets for the industrial production, it fell into a total disaster situation. Quite one million young Bulgarian emigrated to the United States, Spain, Canada, Germany or Great Britain to look for better conditions of life. These young people represented the flower of young intelligence and were, at the same time, the main science-fiction, fantasy and terror, readers. More than half the Bulgarian population began to live in poverty and the main task of each one was to find food for his family. During this period, there were very few people in a condition to think to buy a book. In the year 1996, the ex-communists converted into socialists’ government fell, because of disturbances provoked by the mobilized people; there has been a provisional government period and, in the year 1997 new elections put into power a democratic government which ended inflation and then the economic life gradually began to stabilize.
Nevertheless, because of the crisis suffered by the country, all the reviews had failed, and more than half the publishers dedicated to the style. Due to the strong competition of the North American literature, which, since 1990, has been published preferably to the Bulgarian one, national science-fiction began to suffer the consequences. The young reader has got accustomed to United States’ writers and Bulgarian writers must fight against their disadvantages and better very much the quality of their works if they hope to sell their production, now that the only parameter accepted is the quantity of books sold on the market, and the position of the writer is determined that way.
There only remained three publishers, those who heroically defended Bulgarian science-fiction and fantasy. They were “Cuasar” which nearly failed in 2004 (published eight books), “Elf” (published eighteen books) and “Argus” which still exists and, during this period, has published twenty three books from Bulgarian writers. There were other books published, but in this case it is the system “pay for the publishing of your book and then try to sell it”. In that way were published books of bad quality. In the years 1996-97 began to come out the science-fiction, fantasy and terror review “Varkolak” (Ghost), which later changed its name into “Zona-F” and remained active until 2003. In 1998 appeared the review “Fantazy factor” which lasted in the market until 2001. Today the only review dedicated to the style published in Bulgaria is called “Terra fantástica” and appears with a variable frequency, from three to six months. There exist more than ten periodicals in which are published tales of SF or fantasy, and five reviews technically oriented where the same happens.
It is a little ridiculous that the writer of this article, being an old one, considers himself as a third generation member, the generation of young writers, as his first book was published only in 1994. But, since then, were edited six books more.
The third period writers are characterized by the absence of restrictions in their way of writing. Among them one may note the following ones:
Yancho Cholacov has a wonderful fantasy, invents new words and it is quite impossible to translate his works (two books); the young Yuliana Manova is very fond of terror and has got a great potential (one book); Ivailo Ivanov is dedicated to historical science-fiction (two books); Nicolay Tellalov who dedicates himself to nationalist and patriotic science-fiction (three books), Elena Pavlova who works very well her characters (one book in science-fiction and four in fantasy), Plamen Mitrev, who writes under pseudonyms heroic fantasy (fourteen books) and Nina Nenova who writes science-fiction dedicated to contacts with other civilizations (six books). Plamen Mitrev, Nina Nenova and this article’s author published and will published books in Russia. Alek Popov (six books) and Velko Miloev (two books) are also very good Sf writers, they have works in another literary genres. The same are doing the young writers Zdravka Evtimova and Sabina Marinova, who have published very good short stories. Two of his short stories were included in French international collections Utopiae 2005 and Utopiae 2006.
Emanuel Ikonomov is the writer of SF short stories and the chief of Publishing Houses "Argus" and "Egi". He was published lot of anthologies and novels of Bulgarian writers of SF and with his activity he is helping lot of Bulgarian SF. He is the writer of the SF of the third period and he was published three of his own books of SF in this period. (See the cover of one of his books among the examples.)
The author of this article published two books in Spain, a novel and a collection of short stories and a novel in Russia.
Translation from Spanish: Georges Bormand
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