Vera Mutafchieva about I Passed by Last Night


First, I envied the author the title, which says so much. Indeed, the author passes by incidents (not events, thank God!) and characters chosen by him. And looks favorably on them. Though he does not distinctly reveal his attitude, they sound moralizing to me – I see nothing bad in such a definition, our time really lacks morality.
Georgi Grozdev’s is a truly Balkan book. No quotes. Today the Balkans are not what they used to be.
For the first time in decades we are no longer enemies to our neighbors but we are trying to know them, their mentality and stereotype, and last but not least, their idea of ourselves. It is important because much depends on this, especially in perspective. Anyway, we are unlikely to have other neighbors. In this light, I Passed by Last Night has an informative value.
It is as a counterpoint to “Press Report” that the stories about the exiled Bulgarian ethnic Turks sound, especially “Adile” and “Redjeb”: a breath of humanity, in spite of the recent cruel events in Bulgaria. Do we recognize we care about the fate of the Bulgarian exiles?
It is a question of guilty conscience, it seems.
Strange as it is, our vaguest idea was about the Macedonian brothers – steady and hostile bilateral ignorance. Without pathos nor affect, without demonstrative patriotism, Georgi Grozdev depicts not only dramas but tragedies as well, caused by the borders and their frequent redrawing on the map. Borders, roads, bridges: three realia which the author dresses into artistic but frugal verbal clothes. And the unuttered conclusion comes on us: this must be put an end to! As if it is uttered by his characters, who are specially selected from the lower strata of the Balkan societies. And it is illustrated by their fates, unhappy as a whole. Life… World…, as the Turks say with resignation.
A book that will be of use.

November 11, 2000, Sofia