Voydan Popgeorgiev – Chernodrinski, January 15, 1875 in Selci, Ottoman Empire, was a Bulgarian playwright and dramatist from the region of Macedonia. His pseudonym is derived from Black Drin, a river flowing near his home village. Today he is considered an ethnic Macedonian writer in the North Macedonia and as a figure who laid the foundations of the Macedonian theatre and the dramatic arts.
Biography
Popgeorgiev was born in 1875 in the village of Selci, in the present-day Struga Municipality of North Macedonia. He studied initially in Ohrid, then in the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki, but moved with his family in 1890 in Bulgaria, where Voydan graduated from the First Male High School in Sofia. Here he became a member of the Young Macedonian Literary Association. Later Chernodrinski studied law in Austria and Switzerland, but failed to graduate and moved back to Ottoman Macedonia, where he worked as Bulgarian teacher. Afterward he returned to Bulgaria and became a head of the traveling troupe "Grief and comfort" , founded in 1901 and renamed in 1902 as "Macedonian Capital Theater". In Sofia he wrote the most famous of his works, the playMacedonian Bloody Wedding. Voydan reworked it later to give the plot and the libretto for the famous opera "Tsveta" by maestro Georgi Atanasov. After the Young Turk Revolution in 1908 Popgeorgiev moved with his traveling troupe back in Ottoman Macedonia. He was invited there by the Bulgarian Constitutional Clubs with the support of Peyo Yavorov and assisted by the Bulgarian National Theater. During the Balkan wars he was mobilized into the Bulgarian Army. During the First World War Chernodrinski served as Bulgarian officer and created the "Soldier Songs" cycle. After the wars he continued with his theatrical activities in Bulgaria. Towards the end of 1922 he formed a new drama theater under the name "Ilinden". In the mid-30s, Aleksandar Shoumenoff, owner of the First Bulgarian Book Store in Granite City, USA, published part of the works of Chernodrinski. The text wasn't translated into English but his works and plays became popular among Macedono-Bulgarian emigration. At this time Chernodrinski sympathized with IMRO leader Ivan Mihaylov. During the Second World War and the subsequent annexation of Macedonia from Bulgaria, Voydan's troupe organized performances there. Popgeorgiev died in Sofia in 1951, and later a commemorative plaque was set on his home. After the death of Popgeorgiev in SR Macedonia, the drama "Macedonian Bloody Wedding" was published, but some small corrections were introduced in the text, i.e. the words "Bulgarians" have been deleted, or replaced with "Christians".
Works
Besides Voydan's most popular work "Macedonian Bloody Wedding" published in 1900, he published several other literary works as well, including: