Kiro Dzhelebov killed Stoyan Kralev on December 24, 1965.
He tucked the Bible back into the cupboard and went out.
ENDNOTES
* An honorific title for an older man, coming from the Turkish bey.
* Gyuro Mihaylov – a Bulgarian soldier who died in a fire on Christmas Day in 1880, after refusing to abandon his post without orders, despite the encroaching blaze. He has become a symbol of loyalty and bravery – as well as foolhardiness.
* After a baby is born, Bulgarians traditionally do not merely dispose of the stump of umbilical cord, but rather bury or toss it in a carefully selected place, often the family home, believing that in doing so the person will be deeply tied to that place for their whole life.
* The September Uprising of 1923 was organized by the Bulgarian Communist Party (with backing from Comintern) to overthrow Alexander Tsankov’s right-wing government, which itself had come to power through a coup d’état. The uprising was crushed and thousands of communists, anarchists, and agrarians were killed in the subsequent reprisals. During this period, Bulgaria was in a state of virtual civil war.
* Nikola Petkov (1893–1947) was one of the leaders of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union. Although the Agrarians were initially allies of the Communists in the antifascist Fatherland Front movement established during World War Two, soon after the communist coup on September 9, 1944, Nikola Petkov became one of the leaders of the opposition, struggling to restore parliamentary democracy. The communists outlawed the opposition, while Petkov was accused of espionage, put on a show trial, and hanged in 1947, despite protests from Western nations.
* Russian for “Greetings, big brothers” – this phrase has historical significance, as Bulgarians also used it to welcome Russian troops who liberated them from the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78.
* After the communist coup in Bulgaria, the new government set up People’s Courts and tried hundreds of former politicians, as well as prominent business and military leaders. The victims included the country’s three regents (who had had stewardship of the country on behalf of boy king Simeon II), eight royal advisers, twenty-two cabinet ministers, sixty-seven members of parliament, and forty-seven generals and other senior military officers. They were sentenced to death in a show trial in February of 1945, executed, and buried in mass graves.
* From a famous patriotic poem by Ivan Vazov, the patriarch of Bulgarian literature, about the battle of Bulgarian volunteer fighters against the Ottoman forces at Shipka Pass in 1877.
* A Bulgarian schoolteacher who sewed the flag for the April Uprising of 1876 against the Ottomans. The uprising was brutally suppressed, but ultimately contributed to Bulgaria’s liberation, as public outrage over Ottoman brutality convinced the Great Powers to allow Russia to defeat Ottoman Turkey in the final Russo-Turkish war of 1877–78.
* Many Bulgarian irregulars volunteered to fight in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, which ultimately led to Bulgaria’s liberation from the Ottoman Empire.
The translator Angela Rodel would like to thank the following people: Dr. Viktor Todorov, who served as linguistic editor, comparing every word of the English translation to the original and helping to track down obscure dialectal expressions; Ophelia Petrova, the author’s widow, who generously gave her advice and support during the translation project; and Dr. Plamen Doinov, whose academic research on the reception of The Wolf Hunt in Socialist Bulgaria was extremely enlightening.
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