Argir Hadjihristev examines the diet and mountain customs alleged to promote longevity in Life-styles for Long Life: Longevity in Bulgaria (Chicago: Thomas Charles, 1988).
Literature
There are two good surveys of Bulgarian literature in English. Clarence
A. Manning and Roman Smal-Stocki present a brief overview for the general
reader in The History of Modern Bulgarian Literature (New York: Bookman, 1960).
Charles Moser's A History of Bulgarian Literature, 865-1944 (The Hague:
Mouton, 1972) is broader in scope and more academic. Biographical sketches of
individual writers along with listings of their main works are found in Karen
L. Black, ed., A Bibliographical Handbook of Bulgarian Authors (Columbus, OH:
Slavica, 1981).
More recent Bulgarian literature can be approached through the autobiographical novel of Atanas Slavov, With the Precision of Bats (New York: Occidental Press, 1986). Slavov, one of Bulgaria's leading younger poets in the 1960s, emigrated to the United States after being attacked as a "degenerate" and "pornographer" by Party leader Zhivkov. He has also written a survey of the literary scene in the years before his departure, The Thaw in Bulgarian Literature (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1981).
Poet and novelist Blaga Dimitrova was a leading figure among Bulgaria's dissidents during the Communist era and served briefly as vice-president in 1992. A collection of her poems from the 1980s and 1990s has recently been published as The Last Rock Eagle (Chester Springs, PA: Dufour Editions, 1993).
Fine Arts
With the exception of wrap artist Christo, Bulgarians have received little
world attention in the visual arts. There is an excellent study of monastic
architecture, wall paintings, and iconography in Georgi I. Chavrukov, Bulgarian
Monasteries: Monuments of History, Culture and Art (Sofia: Septemvri, 1978).
The tradition of icon painting is presented with excellent illustrations in
Kostadinka G. Paskaleva, Icons from Bulgaria (London: Alpine Fine Arts
Collection, 1991).
Bulgarian film is the subject of Ronald Holloway's The Bulgarian Cinema (London: Associated University Presses, 1984). This work is updated in the same author's "Bulgaria: The Cinema of Poetics," in Daniel J. Goulding, ed., Post New Wave Cinema in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989).
Bulgarian opera stars, most notably represented by bassos Boris Christoff and Nikolai Ghiaourov, can be heard in numerous recordings. Bulgarian Church music may be heard on the recording Bulgarian Orthodox Chants (Baker & Taylor Video) and in a remarkable recording, Bulgarian Church Music, by Boris Christoff made in Sofia's Alexander Nevski Cathedral.
The diversity of Bulgaria's musical traditions is represented by two performers who have become well known in American jazz. Milcho Leviev combines classical training and folk traditions with American rhythms and jazz styles and Ivo Papazov brings to jazz a background in Bulgarian Gypsy music. Both can be heard in numerous recordings.
Cuisine
Bulgarian cuisine resembles that of its neighbors in the former Ottoman
Empire. A general discussion of Balkan cooking along with numerous Bulgarian
recipes can be found in Vladimir Mirodan, The Balkan Cookbook (London: Pelican,
1989). There is also a large collection of Bulgarian recipes compiled by Roumi
Radenska in the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) file available through the
Internet. (See the sidebar on Internet Resources.)
