https://doi.org/10.60056/Lit.2024.33.118-135
https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=1306305
About a Popular Book by an Unpopular Author
Husein Mevsim
Ankara University, Turkey
At the beginning of the second decade of the last century, a modest book with an intriguing title was published in Sofia. The following year it was repub- lished with very minor changes in Varna. In it, the author D. Todorov (D. Bogdanov), about whom we do not have any information today, tells a very brief and popular story about the cities and countries he visited during his six-year travel odyssey between 1907–1912. From Serbia through Italy, Greece and Egypt, he ended up in Asia Minor to immerse himself in the mysterious world of dervishes. The fact that the largest number of pages are devoted to Asia Mi- nor testifies that in all his vagrant licentiousness the Balkan man cannot escape and distance himself; he still finds the familiar nearby world most alluring and comfortable.
Keywords: D. Todorov, D. Bogdanov, popular literature, Asia Minor, dervish
For citation: Mevsim, H. About a Popular Book by an Unpopular Author. // The Literature, Year XVIII, 2024, Issue 33. Sofia: Univerisity Press “St. Kli-ment Ohridski”. (In Bulgarian)
About the author: Hüseyin Mevsim is a professor of Bulgarian language and literature at Ankara University. He was born in the village of Kozlevo, region Kardjali (1964). He graduated from high school in Momchilgrad, and graduated from Bulgarian philology at Plovdiv University (1989). He settled in the Republic of Turkey (1991), initially in Bursa and Istanbul, and subsequently in Ankara (2001), where he defended his master’s degree (2002) and doctorate (2005). Author of monographs, studies and research in the field of literary history and Bulgarian-Turkish cultural and literary relations, among which: “Chudomir’s Trip to Turkey (1932)”, “Between Two Shores” (Annual Award of the Translators’ Union for an Author’s Book, 2014), “Nikola Furnadzhiev and Istanbul”, „Peter Dachev and Istanbul”, “Limited Land. Pages from the Bulgarian-Turkish Cultural Ties” („Hristo G. Danov“ National Award for Humanitarian Studies, 2020), “Atanas Dalchev in Thessaloniki and Istanbul” (“Helikon” Special Award for Outstanding Literary and Historical Contribution, 2022) and others. He continues to translate poetry, drama and non-fiction from Bulgarian, Turkish and Russian.
