Agreed with comment #1: this guy is talentless and the only reason why he has reached the sort of prominence he has is that there was no competition. The new country (post 1878) was scrambling to build a new state, including an imported king, and sought to glorify anything that was written by Bulgarians, regardless of quality, in an attempt to create a "culture" (meaning narrowly kultura, vs. the wider US "general attitudes" meaning)

The visibility of his works has been perpetuated by inertia. The world of BG lit is pretty insular and the lack of intl success should tell you something about its quality. Of course, all those bg lit teachers and scholars are protective of their turf and never really allow dissent. I do not think that most BG lit "experts" can imagine their lives without spending 20% of their time on Vazov.

If you are interested in learning more about BG from that period, read Bay Ganyu (1 and 2) by Aleko Konstantinov. He gets it. Vazov does not. And the current relevance of the main character in the book is phenomenal. Yovkov is also good, and a bit more genteel vs. Bay Ganyu. Yavorov, Debelyanov and Vaptzarov on the poetry side.

Reading Pod Igoto is a colossal waste of time. There is some ethnographic value to it but the novel is worthless from a literary perspective.