Misplacedness as Near-Death Experience: A Jonah Between the Ottomans and the Soviets (Yavorov, Zarkin and Their Armenian Collocutors)
Zeszyty Cyrylo-Metodiańskie March 19, 2026 Yordan Lyutskanov
Commonalities between poems by Peyo Yavorov and Georgi Zarkin suggest a Soviet-Ottoman contact zone, where the topos of 'Jonah in the big fish' symbolizes engulfment by the abyss and punishment for unfulfilled moral obligation. This topos links both poets to national hero Vasil Levski, reflecting their shared condition as agents in that contact zone. Yavorov fought for Macedonian freedom and sympathized with Armenians but was defeated by personal demons; Zarkin survived Soviet prison and synthesized Levski's tasks, bringing the contact zone into being. Armenian references deepen the genealogical link between the texts.