Grigor Parlichev

Template:Short description Template:Pp-semi-indef Template:Infobox writer Grigor Stavrev Parlichev (Template:Langx; Template:Langx; 18 January 1830 – 25 January 1893), also known as Grigorios Stavridis (Template:Langx), was a Bulgarian writer, teacher and translator.<ref name="mackridge">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He received acclaim as a "second Homer" in Greece for his poem O Armatolos. Afterwards, he became a Bulgarian national activist. His other notable works include the poems Skenderbeg, 1762 leto, and his autobiographical work Autobiography. In North Macedonia and Bulgaria, he is regarded as a pioneer of national awakening, but his national identity has been also disputed between both countries.

LifeEdit

File:Bulgarian high school in Solun teachers and students.JPG

Teachers and students from the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki, 1888/1889. Parlichev is the third man with the white beard, sitting from left to right in the first row.

Grigor Parlichev was born on 18 January 1830 in Ohrid, Ottoman Empire (present-day North Macedonia), the fourth child of Maria Gyokova and Stavre Parlichev, a craftsman.<ref name="mev2">Template:Cite book</ref> He was six months old when his father died. His paternal grandfather, a farmer, took over the care of the family. He was taught to read Greek by his grandfather. Parlichev studied in a Greek school in Ohrid.<ref name="bio">Template:Cite book</ref> He was taught by Dimitar Miladinov, a Bulgarian National Revival activist.<ref name="sujecka">Template:Cite journal</ref> In 1839 or 1840, his grandfather died. His family lived in poverty. Parlichev's mother worked as a house servant, while he also contributed to the living of his family by selling goods at the market and copying Greek handwritings.<ref name="bio" /> In 1848–1849, he was a teacher in a Greek school in Tirana, probably in Greek.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> There, he experienced homesickness.<ref name="detrez">Template:Cite book</ref> He went to Athens to study medicine in 1849 but lacking money to pay for his studies, he returned to Ohrid the following year.<ref name="naxidou">Template:Cite journal</ref> In the 1850s, he worked as a teacher in Dolna Belica, Bitola, Prilep and Ohrid.<ref name="mev2" /> In this period, he was seen as a "Grecoman" by his contemporaries.<ref name="bio" /> In 1858 Parlichev returned to Athens to study medicine in the second year, but later transferred to the Faculty of Linguistics.<ref name="bio" /> Adopting the Hellenized form of his name, Grigorios Stavridis, in 1860 he took part in the annual poetry competition in Athens, winning first prize for his poem "O Armatolos" (Template:Langx), written in Greek.<ref name="iliad">Template:Cite book</ref> Acclaimed as "second Homer" and given a bursary to study abroad, he gave part of it to a poor student and spent the rest of it.<ref name="sujecka" /> Fellow contestant Theodoros Orphanidis accused him of being a Bulgarian and associated him with Bulgarian propaganda.<ref name="detrez" /> In 1862, he wrote another poem titled "Skenderbeg" (Template:Langx) in Greek, with which he participated in the poetry competition, but it did not win an award.<ref name="slavic">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> After the death of his teacher Dimitar Miladinov in the same year, he returned to Ohrid.<ref name="bechev">Template:Cite book</ref>

Upon his return, he became familiar with the Bulgarian language and the Cyrillic script.<ref name="slavic" /> Parlichev continued to teach Greek for a living. He encouraged the Bulgarians of Ohrid to send a petition to the Ottoman sultan for the restoration of the Archbishopric of Ohrid in May 1867.<ref name="naxidou" /> In May 1868, he went to Istanbul (Constantinople) to study the Church Slavonic language.<ref name="slavic" /><ref name="sujecka" /> After studying, he returned to Ohrid in November.<ref name="slavic" /> In the same year, he advocated for the use of Bulgarian in the schools and churches.<ref name="naxidou" /> He also replaced Greek with Bulgarian in the Ohrid school where he was a teacher.<ref name="lindstedt">Template:Cite journal</ref> Parlichev was arrested and spent several months in an Ottoman jail in Debar after a complaint was sent by the Greek bishop of Ohrid Meletius due to his activities.<ref name="naxidou" />

He married Anastasiya Hristova Uzunova in 1869 and had five children: Konstantinka, Luisa, Kiril, Despina and Georgi.<ref name="mev2" /><ref name="bio" /> In the 1870s, Marko Balabanov and the other editors of the magazine Chitalishte (Reading room) in Istanbul made him the suggestion to translate Homer's Iliad into Bulgarian.<ref name="slavic" /> In 1870 Parlichev translated his award-winning poem "O Armatolos" into Bulgarian in an attempt to popularize his earlier works, which were written in Greek, among the Bulgarian audience.<ref name="bio" /> Parlichev was the first Bulgarian translator of Iliad in 1871.<ref name="iliad" /> However, he was criticized by Bulgarian literary critics because they considered his knowledge of Bulgarian as poor.<ref name="bechev" /> Parlichev used a specific mixture of Church Slavonic, Bulgarian, Russian and his native Ohrid dialect.<ref name="slavic" /> In 1872, he published the poem called 1762 leto.<ref name="mev2" /> He worked as a teacher in Gabrovo in 1879–1880 but he was not satisfied with the climate and the dialect there.<ref name="detrez" /> In 1883 Parlichev moved to Thessaloniki where he taught at the Thessaloniki Bulgarian Male High School from 1883 to 1889. During his stay there he wrote his autobiography between 1884 and 1885.<ref name="bechev" /><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> After his retirement in 1890, he returned to Ohrid, where he lived with a pension until his death on 25 January 1893.<ref name="naxidou" /><ref name="bio" />

Identification and viewsEdit

Per historian Raymond Detrez, who received his PhD for his thesis on Parlichev,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> in his early life Parlichev was a member of the Romaic community, a multi-ethnic proto-nation, comprising all Orthodox Christians of the Ottoman Empire.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> It had been under way until the 1830s, with the rise of nationalism in the Balkans. In his youth, he had no well-defined sense of national identity and developed a Greek (Rum Millet) identity (in the sense of being an Orthodox Christian), but as an adult, he adopted a Greek and later a Bulgarian national identity. In the last decade of his life, he adhered to a form of vague local Macedonian patriotism, though continued to identify himself as a Bulgarian. Thus, in the context of discussions about the existence of the Macedonian nation, his national identity became disputed between Bulgarian and Macedonian (literary) historians.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> However, he never identified himself as an ethnic Macedonian.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> As a Bulgarian national activist, he used German historian Jakob Fallmerayer's discontinuity thesis against the Greeks. In his autobiography, he wrote that the Bulgarians had been scorned and abused enough by other peoples and advised them to become aware of themselves, instead of despising themselves, to become confident of their abilities and rely on their hard work to achieve progress.<ref name="rd">Template:Cite book</ref> In 1889, under a translation, he signed himself as "Gr. S. Părličev, killed by the Bulgarians" (Гр. С. Пърличевъ, убитий българами).<ref name="bio" />

LanguageEdit

As a child, Parlichev learned to write excellent Greek and later wrote in his autobiography that he mastered literary Greek better than a native speaker.<ref name="lindstedt" /> However, as an adult, despite his Bulgarian self-identification, Parlichev had poor knowledge of literary Bulgarian, which appeared to him as a "foreign language". He started learning to read and write in Bulgarian only after his return from Athens in 1862.<ref name="slavic" /> In his autobiography, Parlichev wrote: "I was, and I am still weak with the Bulgarian language,"<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="lindstedt" /> and "In Greek I sang like a swan, now in Slavic I cannot even sing like a donkey."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> His native Ohrid dialect was different from the eastern Bulgarian dialects.<ref name="lindstedt" /> He used a mix of Church Slavonic, Russian and Bulgarian words and forms, as well as elements from his dialect, which is known as "common Slavic".<ref name="slavic" /> Because of this, he was criticized for his translation of Homer's Iliad.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Thus, according to Bulgarian historian Roumen Daskalov, Parlichev reacted against his Bulgarian literary critics by withdrawing into "an alternative Macedonian regional identity, a kind of Macedonian particularism."<ref name="rd" /> However, when he came to write his autobiography, Parlichev used the standard Bulgarian language with some influence of his native Ohrid dialect.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

LegacyEdit

File:Григор Пърличев - Автобиография (Григор Прличев - Автобиографија).pdf

The first page of Parlichev's autobiography published by the Bulgarian Ministry of Education in the magazine Folklore and Ethnography Collection, a year after his death in 1893.

File:The house of Grigor Prličev in Ohrid, Macedonia.JPG

The house of Grigor Prličev in Ohrid, North Macedonia

His autobiography was published posthumously in Sofia in a Bulgarian periodical called Folklore and Ethnography Collection, produced by the Bulgarian Ministry of Education, in 1894.<ref name="sujecka" /> Parlichev's son Kiril Parlichev became a prominent member of the revolutionary movement in Macedonia and a Bulgarian public figure.<ref name="bechev" /> After World War II, Macedonian historians started regarding him as an ethnic Macedonian author.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Both North Macedonia and Bulgaria regard him as a pioneer of national awakening.<ref name="bechev" /> The Parlichev Ridge in Antarctica is named after him.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> A digital monument honoring him was set up in the center of Ohrid in 2022.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

ReferencesEdit

Grigor Parlichev

Contents

LifeEdit

Identification and viewsEdit

LanguageEdit

LegacyEdit

See alsoEdit

ReferencesEdit

Further readingEdit

Parlichev's AutobiographyEdit

BiographiesEdit

Historical contextEdit