A wonderful story
More than 125 years ago, Mihalaki Georgiev wrote a wonderful story – “Uncle Dencho’s Desire” (original “merak” – from Turkish). In it, a simple Bulgarian man became embroiled in yet another political intrigue, and in the name of a party cause passionately agitated that black was not entirely black. Then he sat down to dinner next to the minister and received a promise of a reward. Today, such a reward is called a “party appointment”, as it was in those years. So our hero travels to Sofia for a meeting with the minister in question and after a long struggle, he is faced with a difficult existential choice – what position he should be appointed to, what profession he should choose. In defence of the hero, we have to add that he is still modest enough to admit that he would not feel comfortable in the field of medicine, law and order institutions, the administration of justice (unlike modern day incarnations)… But his desire was to become an orchestra conductor. He wanted to wave a “stick” and to command the musicians and their instruments with every movement of the conductor’s baton!
