“Elena Yankova was born in 1825 in Yambol. Due to the turmoil in the Ottoman Empire and the persecution of the Bulgarian population, Elena’s parents, along with many other Bulgarian families, were forced to leave their homeland as early as 1828, when she was three years old, and settle in Bessarabia. They settled in the local village of Karapcha, where Elena stayed until her twentieth year.
In the village of Karapcha, Elena learned her mother’s repertoire. These are songs of the Bulgarians from Eastern Thrace. Some of these songs can still be heard today in Yambolsko, Slivensko and Kotlensko. At the age of 20, Elena married Nikola Yankov and moved to Bolgrad, where she remained until the end of her life.
Elena Yankova died in 1901. However, she did not take her song treasure with her. In 1908, her son Georgi Yankov published in a separate book the 333 folk songs recorded by him by Elena Yankova under the title: Bulgarian folk songs by Elena V. Yankova, recorded and published by: Colonel G. Yankov. However, these are spoken texts, without chants. Elena handed over the melodies of a significant part of these songs to her daughter Kina N. Yankova, by husband Panayot Yaneva, who along with the songs inherited her mother’s musical talent.
In 1911, at the invitation of her brother Georgi, Kina arrived from Bolgrad to Sofia. “Since my mother had passed away (in 1901) – writes Yankov – I hired myself to reproduce the voices of the songs through my sister Kina, who, in addition to most of our mother’s songs, knows how to sing many more.”
Composer Dobri Hristov was in charge of notating the melodies, who recorded the melodies of 215 songs over the course of 10 days. This collection was reported at a meeting of the Historical-Philological Branch of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences on March 15, 1912 by Dr. Ivan Shishmanov and published in the Collection of Folk Thoughts and Folklore, vol. XXVII of 1913 under the title “Bulgarian folk songs from Bessarabia”.
Documents from the fund of Vasil Yankov, grandson of the singer, provided by the Central State Archive, as well as documents from the funds of the State Archive – Yambol, were used for the realization of the exhibition.
We thank the municipality of “Tunja” for the implementation of the idea, the colleagues from the CDA for providing digital copies of photos and documents. And the exhibition “came to life” with the musical illustrations of the singers and musicians from the “Tunja” Folklore Ensemble and students from NUFI – Kotel”.
Tags: Elena Yankova talks preserved heritage folk singer exhibition State Archive Yambol
