Epic of the Forgotten (original) (raw)

Epic of the Forgotten (Bulgarian: Епопея на забравените; Epopeya na zabravenite) is a Bulgarian poetic saga written by Ivan Vazov to commemorate the Bulgarian fight for freedom against the Ottoman Empire and to criticize the moral decline of the Bulgarian nation after the Liberation, in comparison to the heroic figures and events of the then recent past. It could be said that the "Epic" formed the Bulgarian national consciousness and created many of the Bulgarian historical legends and myths. It served as an interpretation of the struggle against the Ottoman Empire and mostly the April Uprising, not in its real values (the limited number of participants and the military failure of the uprising) but in its morals. The Bulgarian fight for freedom was interpreted as a sacred act of heroes exa