Inn at Antimovo, also translated as Evenings at the Antimovo inn (original title: Вечери в Антимовския хан [Vecheri v Antimovskiya han] is a collection of short stories by tye Bulgarian writer Yordan Yovkov, centered around a fictional inn near the northeastern village of Antimovo. The work, completed between 1922 and 1928, is considered one of Yovkov's deepest philosophical character studies. The stories are interconnected and take place from the liberation of Bulgaria (1878) to the Second Balkan War (1913). Several other of Yovkov's short stories are sometimes also included. Of those, Along the Cable, Albena and The Man from the Other Village are considered the finest works and included in the school curriculum.
This work features the following tropes:
Kalmuka's Slumber
At the inn, three people can always be seen: the innkeeper, her daughter Vassilena, and Peter "Kalmuka", a gruff, aging man who's always sitting at the bar, looking half-asleep, like he's watching someone. This is why.
- Non-Indicative Name: "Kalmuk" is a Turkish loanword, meaning "runt". The character is a burly man.
- Protectorate: Kalmuka is keeping an eye on the innkeeper's daughter, as promised to her mother.
- Stalker with a Crush: The teacher toward Vassilena.
Father and Son
The Private Teacher
The village's new teacher, Palazov, is smitten by the ballerina of a visiting theater troupe.
- Green-Eyed Monster: The acrobat from the troupe has a very obvious crush on Elisa Schmidt, which causes him to get drunk.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Miss Schmidt is interested in the shy, mild-mannered teacher as opposed to any other man present.
Meeting
Vitan, a veteran policeman passes through the inn and recalls the old days in a conversation with Kalmuka.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Inverted - Reçep the bandit receives help from his old mother and she is brave enough to attack a band of huntsmen who have captured him.
- Eyepatch After Timeskip: More like No Eyepatch In The Backstory - Kalmuka asks Vitan why he has one now.
- Eye Scream: Vitan is blind in one eye. It's revealed he lost the other to the mother of a bandit he hunted down.
Foes
A scoundrel milks favors from two groups of peasants from feuding villages.
- Playing Both Sides: The main character gets free food and drink from a group of men from one village by making fun of the other villagers, then vice versa.
One Sack of Gunpowder
A Handful of Ash
- Trash the Set: The inn gets burned down in the 1913 Romanian invasion.
Along the Cable
A local farmer, Peter Mokanina, is approached by a man, Guncho, asking for directions to where a rare white swallow was sighted, which he believes has the power to cure his ill daughter.
- Albinos Are Freaks: The rumored white swallow is said to have the powers to cure any illness of anyone who sees it.
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Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: This work is included in the 7th grade lit class schedule and is as a result heavily analyzed, often overanalyzed. The mysterious illness caused to the girl by a snake and supposedly cured by a white bird is painted as a juxtaposition of the chthonic versus angelic, given biblical undertones, or interpreted as trauma or even sexual assault (the snake being a phallic symbol). The white swallow's cryptid-like nature is likewise asribed various symbolic meanings, from the divine to nature to a symbol of a departing magical past (when juxtaposed to the telephone wires swallows perch themselves on before migrating south). - Ill Girl: Nonka, Guncho's 19-year-old daughter, has fallen mysteriously ill after she spent a night with her friends in the field and woke up to see a shake coiled on her chest.
- Motivational Lie: Mokanina can't bring himself to lie to Nonka about the possibility to spot the albino swallow and promises her that she will."Will we see it, uncle?", the girl muttered and her clear eyes lit up.Something rose up in Mokanina's chest, choked him, his eyes blurred."You will, child, you will", he spoke loudly. "I saw it, you will too. Saw it with my own eyes, white like that. You'll see it too. God's willing you see it and get cured... hey, you're so young. You'll see it, I'm telling you, you will, and you will be cured, child, have no fear..."
- Skyward Scream: Downplayed. Peter is shaken by the family's suffering and after they depart, he looks at the sky and cries "God, so much pain in this world, oh God!"
Two Foes
Albena
A woman, Albena, is accused of the murder of her husband, Kutzar, together with her secret lover, but won't reveal her accomplice.
- Bad Boss: Kutzar's sort of boss, Nyagul, mistreats him and in the days before his murder, the usually patient Kutzar was hostile to him. Kutzar knew his wife was cheating on him with Nyagul.
- Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Downplayed. Albena repents for her crime but she still went along and did it. The focus is placed more on how others still feel the impulse to forgive her when they get reminded of her beauty, despite having sworn to lynch her minutes earlier.Sinful was this woman, but she was beautiful. The women who had prepared to mock her stood silent instead, and Old Man Vlasho's crutch never moved.
- Hiding in Plain Sight: The murderer's identity: Nyagul. No one ever doubted him, although they have a rather detailed description of the murderer: a handsome blond man with shaggy locks of hair under his fur hat which he wears tilted, wearing a short jacket with a furry collar. It only occurs to them that he matches the description when he turns himself in in front of everyone. He was also on bad terms with Kutzar in the days before the murder, but no one really paid attention to that.
- New Old Flame: In the theatrical adaptation, Nyagul reveals he has been in love with Albena for 7 years straight, but she rejected him and he started a family with another woman.
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: One of the two things people find remarkable about Kutzar (besides his strength) is that he managed to marry Albena despite being poor, ugly and rather dim-witted.
- World's Most Beautiful Woman: Albena is regarded as a stunning beauty. All men lust after her and all women admire her to her face while hating her behind her back. She is fully aware of it all.
The Brothers from Senebir
Two wealthy brothers introduce a thresher machine for grain but fall victim to their own greed.
Ivan Belin's Sin
A man is conflicted after killing a she-wolf who hounded his herd.
- Monster Is a Mommy: Ivan Belin initially is sympathetic of the she-wolf when he sees how tormented she looks by the struggle to find food for her cubs. Later the women of the village echo that sentiment when he brings the wounded animal, bound and gagged, parading it across the streets.''And while the men are still murmuring something, the women already grab their children to take them away, but they cannot tear their eyes off the she-wolf and stand silent."Poor thing!", one of them whispers."She's got children, too... Dear God!"And all those mothers cast their gazes upon Ivan Belin, and in them burn malice and loathing.
Deception
Treasure
Another World
The Man from the Other Village
At the village pub, a man from a neighboring village is fined for minor theft, which he was forced to commit to keep his horse alive.
- Jaywalking Will Ruin Your Life: The man is brought in by a villager who accuses him of trespassing and stealing crops from a field that belongs to someone in the village. It turns out that he only plucked one ear of corn and tried giving it to his sick horse. The mayor forces him to pay a fine (100 leva) when he only has little more than 20 at his disposal.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The villagers at the pub are initially hostile to the outsider, insisting that he pay the impossibly high fine for plucking a few ears of wheat from one of their fields to feed his dying horse, and think he's lying. Once someone alerts them that there really is a dying horse outside, they rush to its rescue and help the outsider with accommodation.
- Wisdom from the Gutter: Torashko the stone hewer, always drunk, is the only one to stand up for the stranger while everyone else is on the verge of physically assaulting him, probably just because he's drunk and loves being a contrarian.
