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Atanas Boyadjiev's songs: bridge between past and present

Photo: archive

It is not enough to say that Atanas Boyadjiev's creative work respects with its popularity. He created music for some of Bulgaria's best loved TV series such as Na Vseki Kilometar (At each kilometer) and Kapitan Petko Voivoda (Captain Petko Voivide), as well as for a series of popular films and children's songs in the so-called entertaining genre. Atanas Boyadjiev has been among the laureates of the Golden Orpheus song contest since its establishment in 1965. He won various awards of this prestigious Bulgarian music contest, which turned into an international contest in 1967.  In 1969 Mr. Boyadjiev was awarded with the first golden statuette for creative work in the history of the Golden Orpheus for the song Sun Sunuvah Moya Obich (I dreamt a drean, my love), lyrics Bogomil Gudev, to the rendition of Margret Nikolova and Kiril Semov, arrangement - Decho Taralezhkov.

The piece Sun Sunuvah was a music hit for many years. Those who were children back in the 1970's remember this song. 

“The recording of this song was sold across the whole country after that music contest”, Mr. Boyadjiev explains. “There was a shop for vinyl records downtown Sofia, on Hristo Belchev Street. One day I went to the shop and the woman who worked there said: “What is this song Mr. Boyadjiev? Everyone is asking for it.” It was a great compliment to hear that. In my view, Bogomil Gudev's lyrics contributed a lot to the great success of Sun Sunuvah song. The verbal message of a given song is of great importance. Bogomil was a very interesting person. He had a degree in Chemistry. Bogomil was the son of the renowned Bulgarian folk singer Gudi Gudev and played the double bass in various orchestras. He also hosted for several years a folklore show at the Bulgarian National Radio named Pisnala Gaida Sharena. I discovered his talent to write music texts.”

The Seagull Song (Pesen za chajkata) performed by Emil Dimitrov gave the start of an exceptionally fruitful cooperation between Bogomil Gudev and Atanas Boyadjiev which resulted in the creation of wonderful songs.

“In the beginning of the 1970's we decided to make folklore songs. We believed that it would be good, if we offered the Bulgarian listener songs containing elements of the Bulgarian urban and rural folklore. I wrote two tunes. The first one was named Otkude Da Vzema Sila (I am exhausted)”, Atanas Boyadjiev recalls. Later the song was renamed into Ludo-Mlado.

However, this song never sounded on the airwaves of the Bulgarian National Radio, because it contained an erotic element. The recording was kept in the radio's library collection of records and was kept on the shelves for decades. Many years later the composer's wife Lina Boyadjieva accidentally heard the Children's Choir Petrichanche at the airwaves of the Bulgarian National Radio and the host announced the folk song Ludo Mlado. The title was changed, the lyrics were slightly modified, but the music remained untouched. Atanas Boyadjiev and his son Kristian Boyadjiev (composer and radio host) gradually found out that there were over 50 different versions of this song. It turned out that the song was repeatedly released on CDs. The mystery was finally unveiled in 2002 with the Vox populi album of Bulgarian TV host and showman Slavi Trifonov and his Ku Ku Band. Then, the authors of the song became public. The small vinyl record which played the song for the first time had long ago been lost. This song was performed for the first time by Petar Chernev and Magda Panayotova and published by Balkanton recording studios. The only proof of the vinyl is a collection published in 1971 by the Union of Bulgarian Composers.

In 1962 famous Bulgarian satirist Radoy Ralin wrote the lyrics to the piece Ropotamo. This song turned into a music hit for decades. In 2011 it was recorded with a new arrangement by Bulgarian musician and percussionist Kalin Veliov and TUMBAITO Band. Today many young fans of Bulgarian music do not know how old the Ropotamo song is, but they gladly sing the song on various concerts and in many music clubs.


The audio file contains the following songs:

1 -  Sun Sunuvah

2 - Pesen za chajkata

3 - Ludo mlado

4 - Ropotamo 


English version: Kostadin Atanasov




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