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At the junior high school trips were organized. They used to take us there, for some holiday like 1st May, for example, where now is Ivan Vazov quarter. There were lots of brooks and we would go to the first brook, then – to the second, to the third and so on. I managed to make some friends – with Sara Betsarel, she went to live in Israel later, with Victor Mandil.
While at the boarding school and the orphanage I managed to attend an anniversary, the 70-year anniversary of Ekaterina Karavelova [13], the wife of Petko Karavelov [14]. I was supposed to give her a bunch of flowers on behalf of the boarding house. I moved closer to her and I was already on the stage I looked at her face and she was only blinking, blinking, blinking… I saw something I wasn’t supposed to see. And what do you think that was – she was blind. She had had a lot of worries with her two daughters. You’re already familiar with the tragedy of Lora Karavelova – Yavorov’s wife [she commited suicide in 1913; the other daughter Viola Karavelova was married to the famous journalist and writer of Jewish origin Josif Herbst, killed in the political repressions in 1925] [Peyo Yavorov] [15]. Ekaterina Karavelova went blind but she was said to be the neck, which says which direction the head will turn… She was the most intelligent of them all.
I watched the opera ‘Gergana’ by Maestro Georgi Atanasov [(1882-1931) - a conductor, a composer, a pioneer of Bulgarian opera creative work, Pietro Mascani’s student] in the military club. I saw what opera was for the first time, until that time my favorite place for entertainment in Gorna Dzhumaya had been the river and now, all of a sudden, a river on stage and I went nearer and saw that the fountain they had been talking about was trembling a little. So I moved quickly to ask what that fountain was and the people around me started laughing…
While at the boarding school and the orphanage I managed to attend an anniversary, the 70-year anniversary of Ekaterina Karavelova [13], the wife of Petko Karavelov [14]. I was supposed to give her a bunch of flowers on behalf of the boarding house. I moved closer to her and I was already on the stage I looked at her face and she was only blinking, blinking, blinking… I saw something I wasn’t supposed to see. And what do you think that was – she was blind. She had had a lot of worries with her two daughters. You’re already familiar with the tragedy of Lora Karavelova – Yavorov’s wife [she commited suicide in 1913; the other daughter Viola Karavelova was married to the famous journalist and writer of Jewish origin Josif Herbst, killed in the political repressions in 1925] [Peyo Yavorov] [15]. Ekaterina Karavelova went blind but she was said to be the neck, which says which direction the head will turn… She was the most intelligent of them all.
I watched the opera ‘Gergana’ by Maestro Georgi Atanasov [(1882-1931) - a conductor, a composer, a pioneer of Bulgarian opera creative work, Pietro Mascani’s student] in the military club. I saw what opera was for the first time, until that time my favorite place for entertainment in Gorna Dzhumaya had been the river and now, all of a sudden, a river on stage and I went nearer and saw that the fountain they had been talking about was trembling a little. So I moved quickly to ask what that fountain was and the people around me started laughing…
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Margarita Kohen