Christopher Buxton »

Where have all the children gone?

2012

  1. Where have all the children gone?

    September 2, 2012 by Christopher Buxton

    This is a time of present and imminent centenaries – grim early twentieth Century milestones in modern Bulgarian history, which point the way towards diminished national aspirations. The Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913 and the “national catastrophe” of the First World War led to significant territorial loss and a laceration of national self esteem.  One hundred years later, Bulgaria is according to surveys the poorest and unhappiest member country of the troubled EU. There’s an oft repeated joke: Yes, there are two ways out of the economic crisis – Sofia Airport Terminals 1 and 2. The Bulgarian population is dropping as youthful emigration increases.

    The poet Ivan Esenski, whom I had the privilege of getting to know at the Koprivchitsa Dimcho Debelyanov Festival, has written a poignant variation on Pete Seeger’s famous protest song.  It reflects not only on the wars that Bulgaria has fought but also the present crisis. He has allowed me to print my translation here.

    Following On

    Where are they going, our lads?

    What are these stops in the heart beat?

    Why no shriek, why no pain?

    The rain bears down on their sodden great-coats,

    And they march on – so ridiculously proud.

    And once it rained like this on us.

     

    Life repeats itself in cycles of banality.

    Yet after all this how do you keep faith –

    After the scars of the past, how?

    Our fathers stood struck dumb

    And looked not in our eyes but at our wounds

    How we stamped to attention with absurd pride.

     

    Now they are by their fathers, in the ground.

    Our children kiss the banners

    And depart in the autumn mist.

    Where are they going, our lads?

    The rain stays silent over bones, over oaths.

    And we, where are we truly going?

     

    Resembling living statues,

    The women silently blink back the tears,

    Dried out over the days of their youth.

    The lasses, where did you hide them?

    Lasses, where are you off to, darlings?

    Where are they going, our women?

     

    Why they’re still restlessly wandering

    Tiptoe through our sterile nights?

    Why do they execute backward looks?

    There where the beds whiten in solitude,

    There where ‘twixt us and them weighs in

    The wall of our spectral vocation.

     

    It’s true it’s become a question of honour

    To pluck them from this wet autumn orchestra

    And get them into some dark entry

    and between two kisses to confess

    that now – just as before – we don’t know

    where our life is going.

     

    Ivan Esenski © 2008 from Exile

    Translated by Christopher Buxton

  2. Summit by Milen Ruskov

    July 4, 2012 by Christopher Buxton

     

    I met Milen Ruskov briefly in Sozopol at the Elizabeth Kostova seminars.  He was a dark glowing presence in the corner. Everyone was talking about his new novel, Вьзвишение, which translates into Summit. Ruskov’s novel is set in the sacred decade of Bulgarian liberation from the “Turkish Yoke”. In these days of nationalist angst it is a bold author who wants to take on such a context.

    And Ruskov is a bold author. The feverish time of revolutionary committees, of raids on Turkish cash-convoys, of Vasil Levski, of brigand freedom fighters and of a surge in the quest for knowledge and identity – this is all conveyed in the simple speech of two characters, wonderful creations to eclipse the one dimensional Bai Ganyo, as multifaceted national prototypes. The pretentious pomp of revolutionary ideals is filtered through the consciousness of the practical Bacho Gicho and his credulous companion Asen, as they set out on their great adventure. And it is their language that confronts the reader, a rich crude Renaissance language which demands to be read out loud.

    This was the first book I bought after returning from Sozopol. I was a little wary.  Would I understand a single word? Well I’d need some help with some of the folk allusions but the dialect pulls you irresistibly along on a crazy ride through the Balkan mountains and you just surrender to Batcho Gicho – his innocence and worldly cunning. Furnished with only two books by Rakovski and Peter Beron, Gicho attempts to explain the new world to himself and to his kleptomaniac companion.  The result is brilliantly comic. And Ruskov’s daring blows away all the patriotic clichés normally associated with this deadly serious patriotic saga, without for once undermining thdesperate heroism of the times.

    Bulgarian literary critics are often coming up with unlikely comparisons – of the type: This is Bulgaria’s answer to Dan Brown or After this book Marcel Proust can eat radishes. So let me follow in their heels and suggest that Milen Ruskov is the Bulgarian Cervantes. His two main characters represent Bulgaria in the same way as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza represent Spain. And I particularly like Grandpa Yovan, a horse with character to rival Rocinante.

    This is a book that is difficult to translate but for fun I have tried to convey extracts in a local Suffolk dialect. Suffolk is a county which was famous in the middle ages for the wealth of its wool trade and so is an appropriate dialect for our two heroes from Kotel and Zherevna.

    This is the first paragraph. Here goes:

    “Twenny seven Febry, aaar! This en’t no life!  So proper freezen rafty, wood en stone are bustin ’emselves. Tiday oi goin from Kotel and oi’d be on moi way if it weren’t ’avin to wait for Asen from Zherevna, my mate. If he en’t turned over ’is cart in the snow? It were down to ’im to get an ’orse, buy it or steal it, howmsoever chance’ll have it, ’cos I can’t get one from ’ome. It’s other things dependin on me…..Big big cold!  Kotel is right bang in the middle of the mountains, like God made it in his sleep. .  Or if it were a feller, what feller aloive would hev builded it here, I can’t tell, but it’s likely he weren’t in his wits. That’s to say I know what stoopid old folk tales do tell about how supposedly some old boys from Novachka village lost their ’orses, their ’orses come here to the springs, and these old boys found ’em ’ere and loiked the place so much that they scratched their stoopid ’eads  and declared: “’Ere’s  where we’ll start afresh”, and that’s how these buggers hev founded Kotel. Fuck their old lost mother, ’cos of them oi’m stuck in this snowy hell! ’Ere the famous blizzards blow up the whole winter, you cain’t pass. If you ’ent bin out to sea, you can happily go drown yersel ’ere in some snowdrift.”

    And here’s Bacho Gicho on the important question as to whether to wash your hands before a meal:

    “A little later the servants bring some chicken stew and red wine and feed us up right proper well.  After supper they bring us bowls of water, for us to wash our ’ands like proper folk do. I do hear recently that some folk hev taken to washin their ’ands afore the meal, but that’s a step too far, I reckon. They’ll be scrapin off their skin with so much washin. It’s all á la frenchie, mate, is what I say. If some mad idea fly in your head here in Bulgaria, all you got to say is that it’s European, that it’s what they do in Europe and everyone going to believe it and they start doin it. Mates! If you tell ’em it’s á la frenchie to take a shit in the street, they’ll all start takin a dump. It’s the same with washin before you do eat. Why wash, boy, when you goin to be touchin meat right away in any case? So you’re goin’ to wash again afterwards – that right? Well it’s fine for those as has no work to do…”.

  3. Job Swap 7

    June 21, 2012 by Christopher Buxton

    The story so far: As part of a European work-sharing initiative, the GLB  Greatest Living Bulgarian Boyko Borisov and Posh-boy David Cameron have swapped jobs.  Batty Boyko is now in Downing Street and enjoying the Levinson Inquiry. David Cameron is somewhat less comfortable in his Boyanna Residence, worried by eco-protestors)

    David Cameron writes:

    I say, what’s all this fuss about the forests?  Last time I looked, there seemed to be plenty of trees. It’s true I didn’t count a hundred lime trees in Stolipanovo, but folk do need firewood. Now I can’t travel through Sofia without some eco-nut bending my ear about the forests being leveled for tourist development. I phoned up Boyko, he was limbering up in the gym, checking out his heart in time for the doctor’s go-slow.  He plans to rip his shirt off on the Graham Norton show, just to show off his muscles. I should have his problems. When I tell him about the protests, he gives one of his fruity chuckles.

    “I thought you told me that Bulgarians are a jolly patient crew – they never protest!”  I complain. “If I’d known it was going to be like this I’d have swapped with whoever was Prime minister in Greece at the time. At least the job swap wouldn’t have lasted more than a couple of weeks.”

    “Calm down, dear,” he says. Well he jolly well knows how to wind me up. “Thing you need to understand is that all Bulgarians are nutcases – well apart from me obviously. Dogs roam, tearing folk to pieces. Government tries to bring in some controls and dog-lovers form a human shield. I try and sort out good gas and nuclear deals with our good friends the Russians and again everyone with a beard is out there protesting, as though it’s not them who’re going to freeze in the winter. It’s the same with the forests. Our good European friends want to develop some more ski slopes and some nice hotels and again they’re out on the streets.  I say to my countrymen, you complain about unemployment, people leaving the villages, let all the tourists go to Austria, then see who’s going to pay your pensions?”

    “Well yes,” I say, my instinct for fair play kicking in. “But you have to admit that because of your wretched legal system, the moment some piece of land is earmarked for development and it’s bought in good faith and our investor friend starts work on the site, straightaway he’s under siege. A hundred old men and women come out of the woodwork waving title deeds from fifty years ago.”

    “And what have they done with these deeds up till now, apart from build shacks of tin and plasterboard? Their children have all pissed off abroad and they’ve got no money. Anyway I’m off to lunch with Rebecca.”  I felt a pang of jealousy. “Look Dave,” he says reassuringly. “Not all Bulgarian nutcases believe one and the same thing. Get up a counter-demonstration – all the folk who like cutting trees and want ski tourists and are afraid of bears. Make up the numbers with Turks and Gypsies. There’ll be a few bloody heads, as my sparring partner Putin likes to say, but it’s worth it for the fun. Get btv to put across the positive message on one of their news programmes.  We’re not destroying nature; we’re creating heritage. And finally get Plevenliev to veto the whole thing. That’ll help everyone forget about it so we can reintroduce it next Spring when no-one’s looking.”

    I have to admit it’s good advice. He’s a good chap and fun to play tennis with – except he always wins.

    “By the way,” this is his parting shot. “That ball crossed the line and Wayne Rooney is crap even with new hair.”  He puts the phone down before I have a chance to reply.

    I hear a nervous cough.  I turn and see Kristo, my invaluable Bulgarian advisor. It turns out I have a visitor, hanging back in the shadows. Some Count from Sozopol, a friend of that angry Historian who called Bulgarians a fucked nation. Well any friend of Bozhidar Dimitrov…

    “ Step forward and state your business,” I say in my friendly business-like tone.  “Be quick, I have forests to sort out.”

    The Count seems curiously reluctant to step into the light. He’s managed to wrap half the window curtain round his lean shoulders and I notice that even in the gloom his face is remarkably pale. When he opens his mouth in a half smile, I have to admire the dental work. Such long sharp teeth.

    “I’ve been imprisoned a long time.” He speaks a bit like the Romanian ambassador. I expect he’s another victim of communist tyranny. “My friend Bozhidar freed me from my chains in Sozopol..”

    “Well all’s well that ends well,” I say brightly.  “What can I do for you?”

    “Pirogov!”  he stretches out a claw like hand and its shadow reminds me of some film I saw a long time ago at Eton. “You need someone to take charge at Pirogov.”

    Kristo reminds me that Pirogov is Sofia’s biggest accident and emergency hospital and there’s some scandal I’m supposed to sort out.

    Well a Count is a Count even in Bulgaria.  Didn’t they make the Tsar Prime Minister. “You’ve got the job,” I say.  “Just make sure all the blood banks are full.” You never know when all these demonstrations might turn nasty. “And arrange an interview with btv!” I’m really on fire now.

  4. adaptation of an old bulgarian drinking favourite

    June 15, 2012 by Christopher Buxton

    Brenitsa village is one you’d love to pillage

    For what it’s worth, it’s heaven on earth.

    (chorus)

    Oh Tsvetelina, my lovely Tsvetelina

    I’ll wait for you till the beer runs dry.

     

    The village men are intoxicated

    And the women very liberated

     

    And while the kids are angels from heaven

    All their Dads have escaped to Devon

     

    When the moon rides high in the middle of the night

    Everyone jumps into sweet love’s delight

     

    Storks and songbirds fly east and west

    To Brenitsa to build their nest

     

  5. Job Swap 6

    June 14, 2012 by Christopher Buxton

    (The story so far: As part of a European work-sharing initiative, the GLB  Greatest Living Bulgarian Boyko Borisov and Posh-boy David Cameron have swapped jobs.  Batty Boyko is now in Downing Street and firing on all cylinders. David Cameron is somewhat less comfortable in his Boyanna Residence)

    B.B writes: It’s pouring, it’s raining; Queen Lizzie’s still reigning; Charly needs restraining; The BBC’s waning; Osborne needs braining; Nick Clegg’s abstaining; we’re getting a caning; the Euro is straining; Merkel’s complainng and it’s raining, it’s raining.

    I should be the Poet Laureate.

    I still don’t understand what’s so funny about Jeremy Hunt’s name.  But I gave them the benefit of my Bulgarian brain at the Levinson Inquiry. Should politicians have close links with the media?  Of course they should. I always make sure that my every spectacular act and my every word of wisdom is recorded. Should the Police have close links with the media? Again of course!  What normal person would think otherwise? I told Teresa to attend every big arrest and to make sure she was wearing her best shoes. Keep hitting the public with arrests – that’s what they want to see – they’re not interested in the tedious long drawn out court cases.  It’s arrests they want to see. Talking about arrests, Nick Clegg wants me to do something about this Jeremy character.   And I want to do something too, but to a different Jeremy, that supercilious BBC interviewer, who keeps looking at me like a cat bored with a dying mouse. I’ve told the BBC straight: if they don’t sack Paxman and put Yulian Vuichkov in his place they can whistle for any license fee.

    I suppose I’ve got to support England in the Euros. I did want to carry the Olympic torch through Westminster, but Boris nobbled me. The trouble with Boris is that he wants to hog the limelight. Still my chance will come at Wimbledon.  I’m going to duet with Sir Cliff when inevitably the heavens open. I’ve taught him the words of Brenitsa village in my new English version:

    Brenitsa village is great to pillage/ for what it’s worth, it’s heaven on earth.

    Oh Tsvetelina My lovely Tsvetelina, I’ll wait for you till the banks run dry.

    Ha – ha! I had a chuckle over the benighted Polish politician who said that so far the fans were behaving like white men. I’ve seen how white men behave on that TV show, Shameless,  and I did the racism course when I was shepherding African dictators for Bai Toshko. So I’m not going to fall into that trap.  As far as I’m concerned everyone’s white, no matter what their colour. Except Gypsies of course.

    DC writes: Whew, what a scorcher! We’ve had earthquakes and an old arms dump exploded and I’ve had to get used to seeing my picture in the newspapers with a fez, since I did this road-building deal with Turkey and Quatar.

    OK – I know I should have been paying attention, but when we went to visit a community project in Stolipenovo, I thought Sam had hold of her hand.  Sam thought I had her and it wasn’t until we were half way back to Sofia that we realized our daughter Nancy had gone missing. It could have happened to anyone. I’m sure any parent would understand how easily these things happen. I tried to laugh it off but my Bulgarian retinue were in complete panic. They were on the phone to dog-faced Tsvetanov. He got on on the phone to some guy called King Kiril.  I said that Nancy was a bright girl.  I think the last time I saw her, she was dancing with a man in a bear suit. My retinue told me that was a real bear.  I said I thought there were laws and they said – not in Stolipenovo. Oh dear – by now I was sweating a little. Sam was shouting at me. But all’s well that ends well.  By the time we got back to Stolipenovo we were met by five swarthy giants, who said they’d managed to get Nancy back from the circus – all they needed was the five thousand euro, they’d had to pay in compensation plus something for themselves. I was about to say that we didn’t negotiate with kidnappers when Sam trod on my foot.  She was wearing a pair of stilettos that Teresa May had given her.  Ouch. I reached for my wallet.

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