site.btaAssoc. Prof. Puiu: No Romanian Poet Is Similar to Atanas Dalchev

In an interview for BTA here on Friday, Assoc. Prof. Catalina Puiu of the University of Bucharest's Department of Russian and Slavic Philology said that Romanian students are taught the works of Bulgarian poet Atanas Dalchev along other Bulgarian classic writers such as Elisaveta Bagryana and Yordan Yovkov. The literary expert, who was in BTA's Bucharest press club, participated in the presentation of the June issue of LIK magazine, which is dedicated to Dalchev's 120th anniversary. Puiu shared that while many interesting Romanian poets with distinct personalities were active in the 1940s, Lucian Blaga, Ion Barbu and Tudor Arghezi to list a few, none can be described as similar to Dalchev.

She added that while Romanian students are fond of Dalchev's works, too few of his poems have been translated into Romanian. Puiu did find a positive in this: "[Romanian students] in their third year understand Bulgarian and read Dalchev in the original. This is very important for them. They can feel the object lyricism that he presents. And hopefully, there will be someone among our students who will translate and publish a whole book of poetry in Romanian, because Romanian readers need to know that there is such an outstanding Bulgarian poet."

During the event, Puiu read a part of the poem Vecher (Evening) first in the original Bulgarian and then the Romanian translation that she had done. She was then gifted the latest issues of LIK, which she will take to her students who study Bulgarian.

She said: "I think Dalchev would appeal to the Romanian public, to the Romanian reader, through this object prose of his. There is a conflict between the metaphysical and the philosophy of life expressed through ordinary objects, ordinary things in Dalchev's poetry. This is the environment in which we live - the houses, the window, the cars, the walled balcony. This is a path to the Romanian reader. They would understand this philosophy of life that Dalchev presents."