Adapted student edition. Second revised and completed edition.
The novel "Pod Igoto" was created in its main part in 1887 - 1888 in Odessa, where Ivan Vazov finds refuge after political persecutions started in Bulgaria.
"Many sorrow, many sorrows there on the lost homeland," says the author. - My mind, my heart, my soul were constantly flying towards him. But here I was inspired to write this novel and I breathed again the air of Bulgaria."
But this nostalgia of the spirit is only the last emotional stimulus for the emergence of a work that Vazov simply could not write. Because it is a limited expression of his most intimate life and historical experience, a crystallization of the unforgettable memories of the pathetic days of his youth. 
