The ballad in the work of Pencho Slaveykov

Pencho Slaveykov is the most prominent representative of the Bulgarian ballad from the Liberation to the beginning of the present century. Above the few and unknown poets who tried to work in this field, he rises above both the number of ballads written and their artistic achievements. The lasting interest in folk art - an indispensable school for developing aesthetic taste - which Pencho Slaveykov maintained until the end of his life; the revolutionary struggles of our people, from which he took the themes of many of his works; his contact with European literature facilitated Slaveykov's aspiration to create poetry that reached the world level, without affecting its national peculiarity. This path of development turned out to be extremely fruitful and left a unique originality in his ballads.