Between Bucha and Troy: How Yordan Efftimov’s Collection “Before They Wash off the Blood” Transforms Bulgarian Poetic Discourse

Thе paper highlights the innovative features of Yordan Efftimov’s collection “Before They Wash off the Blood” (2022) in the development of Bulgarian war poetry. In terms of poetic form, the book contains various techniques of artistic expression, lengthy epigraphs, as well as strict dating of each text. In relation to content, it abandons a number of traditional motifs and breaks down Bulgarian conceptions of both war and anti-war poetry. The collection consistently avoids motifs of heroism and justice, and denies any ideological and political motivations for war, including the ideas about a Slavic community inherent in Bulgarian culture. In its central part, it also modifies the historicizing model used by Constantine Cavafy in order to demythologize contemporary armed conflict. Overall, Efftimov’s book imposes an unambiguous message of total involvement in the war through the media and social networks, which transform every user of media content into both a participant and victim of irrational global collisions. The paper pays special attention to the Bulgarian concept of New Political Poetry, challenging Mihail Nedelchev’s thesis about the book’s belonging to this trend. The final conclusion is that the collection represents above all a call against the dehumanisation of what was until recently defined as the civilised world.