Mihail Vaglenov

It is known that one of the first (if not the very first) readers and judges of Botev's poems was Petko Slaveykov. Botev sent him a notebook of poems that burned in Stara Zagora along with many other manuscripts and books by Slaveykov, as his son Pencho testifies. In his newspaper "Gayda", year III, issue 19 of April 15, 1867, page 312, Botev's first published poem "Your Mother" appears. Slaveykov's words in "Macedonia", issue 33 of July 13, 1868 most likely refer to him: "I only know one of our young men with poetic abilities..." But after going to Bucharest, Botev no longer searched the pages of Slaveykov's publications. Standing on other, social-revolutionary positions, he cannot even condescendingly welcome some of the poetic confessions of Slaveykov, who, working in Constantinople under the nose of the Turkish authorities, could not accompany his fellow writers from the Transdanubian region in everything. And he was not spared by Botev in the humorous-satirical poem "Why Am I Not?"