“Възвишение” / Summit
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Autor:
Milen Ruskov
Country:
Bulgaria (BG)
Book Theme:
From book to video
Publisher:
Janet 45
Publishing Year:
2011
Bulgarian writer and translator Milen Ruskov, born in 1966, graduated from Sofia University in 1995. He is one of the laureates of the European Union Prize for Literature in 2014 for his award-winning, best-selling and fully-staged novel Summit (2011). Ruskov has written three novels: Pocket Encyclopaedia of Mysteries (2004), which was awarded the Bulgarian Prize for Debut, Thrown into Nature (2008), awarded the Bulgarian Novel of the Year Prize, and Summit (2011), which won Golden Century Award of Bulgarian Ministry of Culture, and Hristo G. Danov Award. In 2011, Thrown Into Nature was published in the U.S. by Open Letter Books with the support of the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation.
National Award for Children’s and Young People’s
Abstract
In Turkish-ruled Bulgaria, the year is 1872, a feverish period of revolutionary committees, raids on Turkish cashconvoys, brigand freedom fighters and a quest for knowledge and identity, known in history as the Bulgarian Revival. This is a time of passionate self-education and allegiance to the great cause of ridding Bulgaria of its oppressors. The pretentious pomp of revolutionary ideals is filtered through the consciousness of two lads, the earnest semi-educated Gicho and his credulous kleptomaniac companion Assen. They set out armed with guns and books from the town of Kotel to
join a band of brigand-revolutionaries in the mountains. Their characters reflect a mixture of down-to-earth brigand ruthlessness and revolutionary idealism, while their adventures form a rich comic pageant, enlivened by Gicho’s wellmeaning attempts to educate his companion. Once they have joined the brigand band, they take part in the robbery of a Turkish tax-wagon convoy at the Arabakonak Pass – an event that marks the turning point in their tragicomic adventures. This robbery, notorious in Bulgarian history, provoked an effective and harsh reaction from the usually corruptible Turkish authorities, leading to mass arrests and the crushing of the Internal Revolutionary Organization. Our two characters, encircled in the mountains by the Turkish army, now face a dilemma which puts their personalities to the test. They make different choices, but both meet the same end.
The narrative is conveyed in Gicho’s words – a rich, crude Renaissance language which demands to be read out loud. His character combines a modern curiosity about the wider world with traditional peasant instincts. The resulting internal conflict is comic and revelatory in turns. The novel daringly blows away all the patriotic clichés normally associated with this serious subject, without underestimating thе desperate heroism of the times. The movie was released in 2017.
