Sofia. The attempt of some Macedonian circles to present Nikola Vaptsarov as a Macedonian poet is an old and invented issue, Galabitsa Todeva, a curator in Nikola Vaptsarov house museum in the Bulgarian town of Bansko, says in an interview with FOCUS News Agency.
“Vaptsarov’s mother defends him in the best way, although Vaptsarov defends himself very well in his works, because a few years ago there were similar attacks,” said Todeva.
She thinks such attacks do not and will not stop.
“Because of similar frauds, on 10 July 1968 his mother Elena Vaptsarova published an address, or more precisely a letter, in the then newspaper Pirinsko Delo,” said Todeva.
In her letter Elena Vaptsarova says: “Vaptsarov’s native land is Bulgaria. I would like to share with the readers of the newspaper my sincere outrage at some writers and journalists in Skopje. I have been worried for a long time, but I was silent in behalf of the good neighborly relations. A few years ago in Warsaw the mother of Zoya and Shura Kosmodemyanskaya and I hugged (Editor’s Note – Galabitsa Todeva explains: The Second Peace Congress took place in Warsaw and then the World Peace Council presented Bulgarian Nikola Vaptsarov with its award and that is the only big award given to a Bulgarian up to now.) and promised each other that we will be in the frontlines of the struggle for peace so that there is no other people like us and that’s why I was silent. And now I will shout it out so that the whole world can hear me! Vaptsarov’s native land is Bulgaria. There he worked and died. When the silly news broke that Vaptsarov’s poems were translated into his native language – Macedonian – I was taken by surprise. Is there a poet in this world who wrote poems in a foreign language and then the foreign people translated them into his ‘native’ language? I, the poet’s mother, write this with my feeble hand.”
Elena Vaptsarova died next year.

Desislava ANTOVA
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