"If I Don't Burn...": Poetry of Trauma by Mehmed Karahüseinov

This article examines the poetry anthology «The Pain of Revelation» by the Bulgarian poet of Turkish origin Mehmed Karahüseinov. The subject of the study is the specificity and dynamics of the artistic embodiment of trauma in this book. The Karahüseinov’s literary heritage is introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The poet is one of those victims of the «revival process» – the policy of forced Bulgarianization in the 1980s – who openly expressed their protest against interference in the sphere of identity of a national minority: in February 1985, he attempted a suicide. The symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder were identified in the poetics of his poems and their artistic embodiment was analyzed. Poetry was a kind of traumatization diary for Karahüseinov, a way of recording his own reactions to interference in identity and an opportunity to understand them. Through various aspects of the psychological state of the lyrical hero – a bearer of autobiographical traits, one can see the dialectic of the writer's trauma: chronic nervous overexcitement experienced by the lyrical hero is combined with obsessive thoughts, a sense of guilt for the inability to influence the cruelty of the authorities towards members of Turkish national minority, intrusive memories and detachment, withdrawal into himself.