Vazov In Berkovitsa
In 1878 the infant state of Bulgaria was desperately short of trained personnel, and a reasonable level of secondary education was often enough to secure a top government job. Thus it was that the 27-year-old poet Ivan Vazov was appointed magistrate in Berkovitsa, despite his complete lack of legal experience. Faced by a local populace accustomed to the partial justice of the Ottoman courts, Vazov was soon out of his depth. On one occasion he had to sentence a dog to death for savaging a chicken - an attempt to appease townsfolk who would have otherwise taken the law into their own hands. As a result, Vazov's reputation was rubbished by a gleeful Sofia press, and the government was forced to offer him an inferior post in Vidin. Seething with humiliation, Vazov resigned and left the Principality of Bulgaria for Eastern Rumelia - where he made his name as a journalist and writer. What's remembered most about Vazov's stay in Berkovitsa is his mildly scandalous affair with a 19-year-old Turkish girl called Zihra . Local legends maintain that Zihra entered Vazov's house rolled up in a carpet, or was lowered over the wall in a basket, in order to avoid the prying eyes of gossip-mongers, although the reality is more prosaic. Zihra was initially married to a local Turkish bey and drunkard who fell into a river and drowned during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877. The wife of Vazov's landlord and colleague, Ivan Stoyanov, took pity on Zihra, engaging her as Vazov's housekeeper, and she tended the tubercular young writer through frequent bouts of ill health. He fell for her in a big way, referring to her as his first and greatest love, but unfortunately Zihra soon left him for the dashing Bulgarian officer Hristo Chavov.
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