Илинденско-Преображенското въстание и българската народна революционна песенна традиция
The Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising and the Bulgarian Revolutionary Folksong Tradition

Summary/Abstract: The development of the Bulgarian revolutionary folksong tradition is marked by two culminating points, the one being connected with the 1876 April uprising, and the other with that of Ilinden-Preobrazhenie in 1903. The people’s struggle against fascism and capitalism at a later stage will mark a third height in this development. With the first two uprisings being remote from each other in time and space, the songs connected with them reveal a lot of common elements, but different ones as well. What is most essential is that, although the haidouk mood generally prevailed, new elements can be observed as early as in the April uprising. They reflect not so much the single haidouk’s ideas as these of the organized struggle. Therefore a great many songs that spread to the south-west formed the basis for the new stage in the development of the revolutionary song, which began at the close of the century. The foundation and the growth of the Armed Revolutionary Organization of Macedonia and Odrin as a nation-wide revolutionary organization became a condition for the unprecedented bloom of the revolutionary song before, during and after the uprising. Hundreds of songs about persons and events appeared, which reflected the heroism of the revolutionaries and their leaders, thus revealing the general uplift and the strive for freedom. Even after the defeat of the uprising the songs still kept up the people’s spirit and belief in the freedom to come. Many of those songs were taken up by the following generations of rebels. This is the case with the song “Temen se oblak zadade ot varh Pelister planina” (A Dark Cloud Came from behind a Peak in the Pelister Mountain), it became the motto of the first guerilla band.

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