About the work
A stage tragedy by the Bulgarian-Macedonian playwright Wojdan Tschernodrinski, first performed on 7 November 1900 at the hall of the Slavic Beseda society in Sofia, despite an official ban prompted by the play's openly anti-Ottoman stance. Tschernodrinski based it on the real story of a girl from Valandovo abducted by an Ottoman bey, writing partly in the Macedonian Debar dialect and partly in Bulgarian.
Plot
Young Zveta is abducted from her village by an Ottoman bey who wants to force her conversion to Islam; her fiancé Spase and the village fight for her release. When the bey tries to reclaim her on her wedding day, violence breaks out and Zveta dies without submitting to him.
Cultural significance
The play became one of the most performed early works of Macedonian-Bulgarian theatre and launched Tschernodrinski's touring company "Skrab i uteha" (Sorrow and Solace). In 1924 the composer Georgi Atanasov turned the story into an opera. The work is still claimed differently today, as either a Bulgarian or a Macedonian national drama.