Ivan Vazov was one of Bulgaria’s famous sons whose name lives on with a theatre in the capital, Sofia, being named after him, along with the national library. He lived through a highly volatile period in his country’s history where Bulgaria struggled constantly to be released from the yoke of Ottoman tyranny. He could probably be accurately described as a revolutionary poet ...
The famous 19th century American writer Harriet Beecher Stowe was best known for her anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin which was published in 1852. This gripping story about the terrible conditions that African-Americans were subjected to at that time was a great motivator for other abolitionists like her, especially in the northern states of America. Those in the southern states often took ...
Bulgarian poet and writer, Hristo Smirnenski was born in the small town of Kukush in Macedonia, then a region of the Ottoman Empire before later becoming part of Greece. His poor upbringing in an area that was often prone to militancy led to the growth of his socialist ideals and would color his poetry through his teens and early years. Despite ...
Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli was born at a commune in the province of Forli-Cesena in 1855. He was brought up in a large but wealthy family and his father helped to administer an estate of farm land for the Princes Torlonia. Tragedy struck while Pascoli was just twelve years old when his father was shot and killed by an unknown assassin. The ...
Considered as one of the most influential poets to come out of Greece in the 20th Century, Giorgos Seferis was born in 1900 in Urla, a town near the ancient city of Smyrna. He came from an educated family and his father was a lawyer and poet with his own reputation, allied to the political movement called Venizelism, all of which ...
