Ivan Vazov, 11 August 1877

Let's have more shame on our forehead,
the ink of the scourge, the marks of the weight;
let the memory of the days of shame be fierce
to hang a cat cloud in our horizons;
let us deny history, forever,

let our name be tragic; let me
Belasitsa old and new Batak
in the past, ours has been flogging its darkness;
let them make us offended with ridicule
break the shackles and holes of shame
down our neck from the yoke of old;
let this freedom be our gift!
Let's go. But we know that what is recent
something new is lit, there is something glorious,
that proudly throbs our breasts
and in us feels strong, great fruits;
because there is a mountain up there,
that the sky blue fastens with shoulders,
a wild, sensual peak rises,
covered with white bones and bloody moss
the immortal feat of a huge monument;
because there is one memory in the Balkans,
there is one name that you live forever
and in our story the legend is a legend gray,
a new name, great antique,
like the saws are glorious, endless,
that the shame is answered and washed away,
and the slander breaks the tooth.

Oh, Shipka!

Three days young squads
as passages are being harassed. Forest valleys
they thrillly repeat the battle roar.
Warm up! Twelfth time
dense hordes crawl along the wilderness
and the bodies of her ceiling, and the blood that floods her.
Storms after storms! Swarm after swarm!
Suleiman the madman points the top again
and he says, "Run! There are paradises!"
And the hordes leave with shouts of anger,
and "Allah!" thunderous air spat.
The top responds with another shout: hurray!
And with new rain bullets, stones and trees;
our blood clad squads,
fired and repelled, no signal, no order,
everyone is looking only to be ahead
and the breast of a hero to death to expose,
and put an enemy more dead.
The shotgun erupted. The Turks roared,
mounds fall and fall, and death; -
They come like tigers, they run like sheep
and they burst again; Bulgarians, Orlovtsi
like lions running on a terrible redoubt,
they do not remember the heat, the thirst, the labor.
The storm is desperate, the resistance is furious.
They have been fighting for three days, but no help,
from nowhere the eye sees hope
and the eagles do not snarl at them.
Nothing. They will fall, but honestly, without fear -
as a spartan whisperer under the Xerxes.
Talas come; everyone is on the lookout!
The last push has come.
Then Stoletov, our general,
jealous screamingly: "Young militias,
marry Bulgaria with laurel wreaths!
of your power the king has entrusted
the passage, the war and even myself! "
With these words, the troops are proud
await heroic duhman hordes
angry and noisy! Oh, heroic hour!
The waves find the rocks then,
cartridges are missing, but the wills last,
the cheek breaks - the breasts remain
and sweet joy to the feet to die
in front of the whole universe, on that glorious mouth,
with one death a hero and one victory.
"Bulgaria is watching us now,
this peak is high: it will see us,
if they were running: to net better! "
No more weapons! There is a hecatomb!
Every tree is a sword, every stone is a bomb,
every thing - a blow, every soul - a flame.
Stones and trees disappeared there.
"Grab the bodies!" someone yelled
and corpses of the dead fluttered their hair
executioner demons black over black swarm,
squirrels, they pile up as alive again!
And the Turks shivered, another time they did not see
to fight alive and die,
and they blow the air with a demonic cry.
The fight turns to death and to the bayonet,
our heroes like rocks solid
they meet iron with their iron breasts
and they fiddle with songs in the fierce logging,
when they see hard that they die already ...
But waves newer than hordes of savages
swallow, dip a bevy of heroes ...
Another moment - the coveted hill will fall.
Suddenly Radetsky arrived with a thunder.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Even today the Balkans, as the storm blows,
remembers that stormy day, making noises and forwarding
his fame is as wonderful as an eq
from catcher to catcher and from century to century!