Issue-2

1960 Book 2 Contents

The life of a genius is not measured by the average duration of human existence. Every passing day expands the boundaries of his immortality. The works of contemporaries give us the opportunity to better understand the greatness of genius. Genius is contemporary even after millennia. But one is the contemporaneity of Aristotle, another of Shakespeare, a third - of Marx. And hardly has the history of mankind known such a complete manifestation of Man with a capital letter, such penetration into the depths of the future, without leaving the real basis of the present, as was manifested in the work and personality of Lenin. 90 years have passed since his birth and only 36 years since his death, and the ideas of Leninism, the ideas of communism are increasingly becoming ideas of all working humanity, marking the path to the future.

Literature reflects life in a more multifaceted and profound way, the brighter the creative individuals working in it - with rich life experience, with a penetrating ideological outlook, with a unique way of artistic perception and depiction. Without the creative self-image of individual authors, the artistic wealth of literature as a whole is unthinkable. Reality is infinitely diverse. It is, according to Dostoevsky, both unexpected and fantastic, and sometimes even incredible. (Russian Writers on Literary Work. Leningrad, 1955, vol. III, p. 151). It seems to me that these words are especially suitable for our contemporary reality, with the miraculous transformations that take place in it. And what a deep meaning, what beauty in this vital "fantasy" of ours. As long as the writer knows how to penetrate it.

So many books have piled up your table - a whole library is before you! These books contain the fifteen-year creative work of poets from several generations. Never in the past has our poetry been so torrential, never in the past has it known that so many poetic works by so many authors have been published in a period of 15 years. And how nice it is, leafing through the pages of these books in the silence of the night, to see how in many of them the gold of a new poetry shines, born, grown and developing inseparably from the new, socialist life of our country, how nice it is to feel the living pulse of this poetry in the works that successfully withstand the severe test of time!

Demyan Bedny writes about his poetic work: "What is not directly connected with my agitational and literary work is of no particular interest or significance: everything fundamental by which my life has been meaningful and justified has found its reflection in what - from 1909 to the present day - has been written by me. These words are very obliging."

The scientific heritage of Academician N. S. Derzhavin (1877-1953) is enormous in volume and extremely diverse in the nature of the research and the range of issues covered. N. S. Derzhavin is a scientist with a broad profile, a scientist with great erudition in various fields of knowledge. Valuable works on the methodology of teaching the Russian language in secondary school, special studies on the history of Russian literature, on folklore and ethnography of various peoples came from the pen of N. S. Derzhavin. The breadth and diversity of his scientific interests in the field of Slavic studies, his scientific activity as a historian and philologist, ethnographer and folklorist allow us to speak of him as one of the founders of Soviet Slavic studies.

The great work of the Slavic enlighteners Cyril and Methodius plays an extremely important role in the life of our people. This role was especially prominent during the years of our national liberation movement from the middle of the 19th century. In the struggle for the cultural affirmation of the Bulgarian people, for broad national education, it is in the first place. The names and images of Cyril and Methodius are the center of this struggle, they inspire people-friendly activity. Evidence of this is the numerous publications about them that appeared during the Bulgarian Renaissance. All social strata show interest in them, and, of course, each perceives and interprets their immortal work from its own positions. The highest and most truthful assessment, closely related to the current political tasks of the historical moment, was received by Lyuben Karavelov and Hristo Botev - prominent representatives of our national liberation struggles, significantly influenced by the ideas of the Russian revolutionary-democrats. All Bulgarian cultural and political figures of the Renaissance who wrote about Cyril and Methodius had an enthusiastic and positive attitude towards their work. They perceived and affirmed it as the basis of the new Bulgarian culture that was being built. They wrote separate books about them, many articles in newspapers and magazines, translated and published scientific studies by prominent foreigners on Cyril and Methodius issues, delivered hundreds of passionate speeches at the annual celebrations organized on the occasion of the holiday of Slavic enlightenment, published many reports on the celebrations held, etc.

In the tense days when, for the second time after the liberation, Hainboaz entered our history with a different kind of fame, I was one of those who set out for the old Balkans to experience the birth of the new up close and to refresh themselves with the working enthusiasm of the twenty-year-olds. And since the nature of my literary expression does not allow me to recreate what I had experienced through the means of artistic expression, I had to justify my trip to the public through another type of cultural work. For more than ten days, I went around the Youth Brigades looking for those skilled in fiction, with the intention of providing them with creative assistance and at the same time establishing closer contact with the people. And indeed, we read their works, talked, argued. Thus, from my tour, which some friends mockingly called a "poet hunt," I took away many hopes and several handwritten pages of poems in which a certain literary gift was evident. A few weeks later, in a report about the experience, I found an opportunity to share my impressions with the readers and to say that not only new people were growing up in Hainboaz, but also new poets who carried within them something of the tension of the era "... I am convinced," I wrote, "that it is precisely this youth - still clumsy, still inexperienced - that will renew our country and our artistic creativity. It will create art in which the enthusiasm for work, love for the simple man, the creator of values, love for the homeland will pulsate - art that will combine in an inseparable unity the living world of objects and great ideas, great dreams for the future". And in order to point out the sprouts of a fresh imagery that promised something unsaid, I cited some of the brigadier's poems of a then unknown poet whom I had met by chance. Not long after, the author of these poems began to collaborate with our periodical, only to recently emerge as one of the sure hopes of our contemporary lyric poetry. Thus, in our fiction, as I expected, the name I had pronounced in my report, the name Ivan Radoe in...

In its relatively long development, since 1842, when Iv. A. Bogorov published the first collection of Bulgarian folk songs and proverbs, Bulgarian folklore studies have achieved significant successes not only in terms of collecting and publishing folklore materials, but also in their research. However, one important gap, which until recently remained unfilled, was the absence of more significant comprehensive and generalizing works on Bulgarian written folk poetic creation, with the necessary scientific depth and competence. The reviews, which were placed in the past mainly in some textbooks on Bulgarian literature, such as Al. T. Balan in his "Bulgarian Literature" (1896) and others, very valuable for their time, today can no longer be fully used due to the often outdated and scientifically overcome views that are advocated in them, and also due to the significantly smaller amount of materials on which they are built. The prominent gap in our science of Bulgarian folk poetic creativity was largely filled in the past 1959 with the appearance of two photo-chronicle works of important importance, namely "Bulgarian Folk Songs" by Prof. Y. Ivanov (published by the Institute of Bulgarian Literature at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) and "Bulgarian Folklore" by Prof. P. Dinekov. Prof. P. Dinekov's book presents the first part of his comprehensive review of Bulgarian folklore, the second part of which is due to be published in the near future. Compared to what has been done in this field to date, it represents a very serious attempt to assess Bulgarian poetic folk art from the point of view of modern progressive science, by clarifying and criticizing all outdated explanations and concepts based mainly on the experience of Soviet folklore studies, which the author has carefully studied.