BLAZING onto cinema screens around the world, the fourth and most recent film in the Harry Potter series has taken box offices by storm. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the first of the series to be given a 12A rating in Britain and a PG-13 rating in the US, sees a decidedly older Harry struggling with his hormones as much as any magical adversaries.
The film has topped the charts in nearly every country where it has been on general release. The British premier of the film broke box office records with takings of 14.9m pounds over its first weekend - the highest three-day opening in British box office history - and broke the 10.7m pound record previously held by Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Audiences were similarly spellbound in China where it grossed more than any other imported film of 2005, and in the US, where it ranked as the second-highest-ever grossing film over the five-day Thanksgiving period.
Last week the magic came to Bulgaria, when cinemas opened their doors to the coven of Bulgarian Potter fans on November 25. Director Mike Newell and actor Stanislav Yanevski, who plays Bulgarian character Victor Krum in the film, trod the red carpet at Arena West cinema, at one of Bulgaria’s first Hollywood-style premiers. British director Newell, whose extensive list of directorial credits includes hits such as Four Weddings and a Funeral and Donnie Brasco, was not present at the film’s premier in Los Angeles and was reported to have told a rapturous crowd that “Los Angeles wasn’t worth it to us, but Sofia, Bulgaria was.” No doubt this would have charmed the huge community of Potter followers in Bulgaria, who have their own Potter Mania website, (www.potter-mania.com) containing a forum and wealth of Potter facts, news and downloads. Predictably, Yanevski has proved to be a huge hit on the forum; the postings by most fans can be summed up in four words: “He is so cool!”. The young actor has been the catalyst for a wave of patriotic pride in representing his country on the big screen and has quickly gained popularity as something of an idol among female fans. He admits to having “butchered the English language” somewhat and to putting on a stronger Bulgarian accent to portray his character onscreen. In reality the Sofia-born actor, has lived and studied in England since he was a child. Nonetheless, Yanevski’s presence in the film has served to fuel the already burning passion of Bulgarian Potterheads.
JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series first sparked the imagination of children and adults alike with the release of the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, in 1998. The magical tale seemed to provide an antidote to “kids don’t read anymore” syndrome, believed by many to have taken youngsters in its grip; combating the poisonous influences of TV and computer games on young minds and drawing children into the enchanted world contained in its pages. The phenomenon spread quickly around the globe, hitting Bulgaria in 2000 when the translation was released here.
Mariana Melinska was responsible for translating the book into Bulgarian. She was faced with a difficult task as many of the words it uses were made up by the author. Words such as “aperate” meaning to teleport with your mind, have Latin roots, which are unfamiliar to Bulgarian children. Melinska had to translate these words so that Bulgarian children would understand their meaning, without losing the original essence of the text. The publishers requested that some words not be changed, as they wanted to ensure that children in any country could relate to the original text in the same way. So, “aperate” became “magiport”, but words such as “muggle” (a non-magical human) remained the same, meaning that they are now being introduced into the lexicon of the 35 languages into which the books have been translated.
The magnitude of the extent to which these words have entered into general parlance, at least in Britain, is evident in that fact that “muggle” is to be included in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The draft definition is:
Muggle: invented by JK (Joanne Kathleen) Rowling (b. 1965), British author of children’s fantasy fiction (see quot. 1997). In the fiction of JK Rowling: a person who possesses no magical powers. Hence in allusive and extended uses: a person who lacks a particular skill or skills, or who is regarded as inferior in some way.
Thus, Rowling is in the unusual position of being a living fiction writer who will have a word they have coined make it into the dictionary. JRR Tolkein’s “hobbit” only made it into the OED in 1976, after the author had died.
If and when any Potter words will find their way into the pages of the Bulgarian dictionary is open to question, but one thing seems certain: Yanevski is fast on his way to becoming a household name - both in Bulgaria and abroad. Though his character Krum does not appear in the sixth Harry Potter book: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, it is likely that some new fans will be queuing up for the Bulgarian translation of the book, being released on December 13.
While they await the big day, Potter fans can get their Potter fix by visiting the exhibition of wax works at the Earth and Man National Museum, Sofia where there is a Harry Potter corner. (For more information, see our what’s on guide on page two of Culture Shock, where you can also read The Goblet of Fire film review.)
