Product Overview
Stoyan Tchaprazov's translation from the Bulgarian of Dobri Voinikov's Криворазбраната Цивилизация
(The Misunderstood Civilization) received a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant in 2023.
From the judges' citation: "A caustic satire from 1871, Dobri Voinikov's play The Misunderstood Civilization is
an indictment of the drive to westernize in the years leading up to Bulgaria's independence from the Ottoman Empire. Hadji Kosta, the protagonist of the play and a wealthy shopkeeper, tries to hold his family together as his wife, daughter, and son are each bewitched by flourishes of European decadence from the play's villain Margaridi, an 'apostle of quasi-civilization.' The play's commentary on the contradictions of gender roles, the trappings of tradition, and westernization as blind imitation has since made it a staple in Bulgarian theater and film. Stoyan Tchaprazov's nimble translation captures Voinikov's sharp-tongued mockery and the heteroglossia of the late Ottoman Bulgaria, breathing new life into a work that remains uneasily relevant to the present.”
