REVIVED FROM THE ASHES (THE POETRY OF MEFKURE MOLLOVA)

Mefkure Mollova, known as a scholar in Turkology, was the first poetess to publish poems in the periodic print in Turkish language in Bulgaria and the only woman who was fortunate to issue a solo poetic collection (1964). She emerges as the most sensitive of the time, whose work boldly touches on the intimate corners of the Turk's mentality and emotionality, to questions and problems close to all women. The sophistication of her work excites young women and crumbles the walls of the traditional taboo. Her contemporaries are delighted with the talent of the beautiful poetess and the "freedom" of her speech, she is perceived as the Turkish Bagryana, almost all young Turkish intelligents were in love with her. Suffocated by the repression of the socialist dictatorship, she was forced to give up poetry. Her work is not known outside the circles of the Turkish readership of the 1950s and 1960s, and like most Turks-poets she remains unknown to the Bulgarian readership. The article also presents the first translations of her poems in Bulgarian.