Quick Facts
Biography
Geo Milev (Bulgarian: Гео Милев) (January 15, 1895 (old style), January 27, 1895 (new style), Radnevo – after May 15, 1925, Sofia), born Georgi Milev Kasabov (Bulgarian: Георги Милев Касабов), was a Bulgarian poet, journalist, and translator.
Life
Geo Milev studied in Sofia and later in Leipzig where he was introduced to German Expressionism. His university thesis was on Richard Dehmel. Beginning in 1916 he fought in World War I, where he was severely injured. After recuperating in Berlin he began to collaborate with the magazine Aktion. Upon his return to Bulgaria he started to publish the Bulgarian modernist magazine Везни (Scales), in Sofia. He contributed to the publication as a translator, theatre reviewer, director and editor of anthologies.
Death
On May 15, 1925, in the course of government reprisals following the St Nedelya Church assault, Geo Milev was taken to a police station for a "short interrogation" from which he never returned. His fate remained unknown for 30 years. In 1954 during the trial of General Ivan Valkov and a group of former police and military executioners, one of the defendants confessed how victims of the 1925 purge had been executed and where they were buried. Geo Milev had been strangled with wire and then buried in a mass grave in Ilientsi, near Sofia. His skull was found in the mass grave. His body was identified by the glass eye he was wearing after he lost his right eye in World War I.
His daughter was the writer and diplomat Leda Mileva.
Works
He published his most famous poemSeptemberin his magazine Пламък (Flame) in 1924. It describes the brutal suppression of the Bulgarian uprising of September 1923 against the military coup d'état of June 1923.
Selected bibliography
- Жестокият пръстен (1920), The Cruel Ring
- Експресионистично календарче за 1921 (1921), A Little Expressionist Calendar for the Year 1921
- Панахида за поета П. К. Яворов (1922), The Commemoration Ceremony for the Poet P. K. Javorov
- Иконите спят, (1922), The Icons Sleep
Honour
Milev Rocks in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica are named after Geo Milev.
