Ivan Vazov Monument

The monument of the great Bulgarian writer Ivan Vazov is located in the center of Sofia, on Rakovska Street, in the garden in front of the church “St. Sofia”. It is the work of the sculptor Ivan Blazhev, who erected it in the 1950s. Ivan Vazov is depicted holding a book in his hand, and his gaze seems to be focused on the future. The whole figure of Vazov expresses intransigence and is a symbol of the unshakable faith and love of the writer to the Bulgarian people.

Ivan Vazov is a Bulgarian writer and poet, called the patriarch of Bulgarian literature. His work is imbued with love for the native and Bulgarian. He writes in almost all available genres – various types of poetry, prose – the first Bulgarian novel, short stories, essays, travelogues, journalism, drama, gives our literature many directions – realism, romanticism, national-patriotic works, even attempts at symbolism. He creates and accumulates tradition – and only for one human life. In Western and Russian literature, this has happened to many generations of writers and poets.

He was born on June 27, 1850 in the town of Sopot in the family of a middle-class merchant. Ivan Vazov graduated from the local mutual and class school, and in 1866 he enrolled in the Plovdiv High School, where he diligently studied French. Instead of taking over his father’s business, Vazov made his first attempts as a writer. His first poem, The Pine, was published in 1870. As an emigrant in Romania, he met Hristo Botev in Braila and Galati, as well as other Bulgarian emigrants. These meetings have a great influence on the young artist. From 1880 he moved to Plovdiv, actively engaged in politics, journalism, criticism and writing. During this period Vazov wrote his famous works “Epic of the Forgotten”, “Unkind-Unloved”, “Bulgarian Language”, “Is It Coming”, “The New Cemetery above Slivnitsa”.

After the failure of the coup in 1886, Vazov left for Odessa. There he wrote the novel “Under the Yoke”, published after his return to Bulgaria. After 1889 he lived in Sofia, and in 1897 he became Minister of Education. He died of a heart attack in 1921 at the age of 71. Ivan Vazov works in almost all genres. The main themes in his works are the love for the Motherland, for the nature of Bulgaria, as well as the victories of the Bulgarians on the battlefield. Vazov did not remain indifferent to the problems of Bulgaria after the Liberation, as well as to the apathy of Europe to the difficult fate of the Bulgarian people during this period.