Epic of the Forgotten

The poems deal with people and events connected with Bulgaria's struggle for national liberation against the Ottoman Empire.

Vazov wrote the cycle to commemorate the Bulgarian fight for freedom against the Ottoman Empire and to criticize the moral decline of the Bulgarian nation after the Liberation, in comparison to the heroic figures and events of the then recent past.

The Bulgarian fight for freedom was interpreted as a sacred act of heroes exactly because it did not have any perceivable chance of success.

Despite the lack of demographic, military and other such possibilities of success against the Ottoman Empire which was still militarily resilient, the Bulgarians toiled under dire circumstances against it.

In collections, the poems are ordered by their time of composition, not the sequence of the depicted events.