Issue-1

1964 Book 1 Contents

"A person without secrets is like a flower without a scent. The scent is the secret of the flower. My house also has its secrets." The beginning of the story "Sunday" - one of the last works of Yordan Radichkov. "A rooster crows all night, we all hear it, but in whose bathroom the rooster is - no one knows." Here is the first secret... It may disappoint a little the one whom the opening words have set in a too secretive mood. Through a cooling and intriguing irony at the same time, the writer seems to be in a hurry to warn us: do not expect anything extraordinary, nothing exceptional, no heroic or tragic deeds, no deep psychological secrets. And indeed, whoever expected them did not wait for them until the last page of the story, dotted with ordinary incidents and scenes in an ordinary residential building on an ordinary Sunday.

A few years ago, a fellow villager of mine, a passionate hunter, took me hunting with him. But it was only towards evening, when we were returning, that he signaled that he had seen something and whispered to me to stop and be silent. He aimed at the telephone wires. Two turtledoves were huddled on them, as if contemplating the increasingly pale, crimson west. One of them flinched and unexpectedly quickly left its companion. The other did not even notice, remaining motionless. At that moment a roar came from the rifle. The bird flew up in some last effort and fell rapidly, almost vertically, to the ground. Even the poor and dry vegetation of the stubble hid it. When my friend brought back the still fluttering bird, with its eyes painfully closed, in a moment we both looked at its half-open beak with shame. My fellow villager immediately came to his senses, picked up the turtledove, and began to tell incredible hunting stories. He was obviously thinking about what had happened as much as his wife had about the hen after he had cut off the rough woodcutter's head. I listened absently and remembered that moment B And Emilian Stanev's story, when the shot-shot squeaking jug flew in the same way, and the forest hid it from his eyes in order to conceal a murder. It was clear to me that my companion saw nothing particularly wrong with what had just happened, this story no longer concerned him. And why did Emilian Stanev seem to be haunted by such memories, why did he want to free himself from someone's intrusive gaze, why did he always talk about... murder in such cases? Was it not because of our gullibility that we mistakenly accepted these stories as "hunting"?

With Don Quixote, Cervantes preserved for generations the chivalric spirit of Spain. In 1553, Charles V issued a law prohibiting the printing of chivalric novels in Spain's American possessions; two years later, the Cortes insisted on their prohibition in Spain itself. Cervantes did what neither the king nor the Cortes could do: Don Quixote destroyed chivalric novels. A Greek painter depicted in his painting Palamedes, killed by his friends for the treacherous betrayal of Odysseus. Alexander the Great trembled and turned pale whenever his gaze rested on this painting, because it reminded him that he himself had caused the death of his friend Cleitus. After the publication of Don Quixote, chivalric novels reflected themselves in him just as Alexander did in the painting of the Greek painter. But "Don Quixote" showed the strength of both the Spanish character and the chivalric spirit. Byron was wrong when he thought that "Don Quixote" destroyed the chivalric spirit of the Spaniards and that, as a result, Spain became a third-rate state.

There is too much work and talk about the exact methods of describing artistic phenomena in our time. It is quite natural that people talk mainly about their present and even more about their future, while groundlessly self-confident statements about their efficiency are often met with extreme skepticism, with positions that are essentially nihilistic: exact methods will never be able to cope with this or that problem... However, in conversations and polemics, the fact is constantly ignored that the vigorous modern development of exact methods is not a unique phenomenon in the history of aesthetics, as some of its advocates try to suggest. Aesthetics experienced, and not so long ago, a hardly less vigorous fascination with the search for exact methods for describing the work of art, the creative and perceptual process, and the development of art. And although the two periods differ from each other in a number of essential features, interesting analogies with useful, orienting conclusions can be drawn between them.

There are writers who have spoken a new word, the meaning of which is nevertheless narrowly historical. They are the pioneers of a new direction in literature, without, however, leaving behind any more significant works of art. There are writers who, by perceiving the new and transforming it in their own way, in their own poetic style, create significant works of art. Karaslavov is of this second type. He works in the general direction of realistic proletarian, socialist literature. He completes the creation of Bulgarian proletarian fiction after Kirkov and Smirnensky, by entering new, previously unknown genres. A subtle observer, a precise artist with a constant striving for transparent clarity of form, he creates a domestic-poetic short story and gradually grows as a master of the novella and the story, of the novel. And his entire work is permeated by the justice of the people's struggles. For four decades now, his inspired pen has served the working class, the people faithfully.

Until recently, there was still a popular view that the entire artistic development of mankind represented a pyramid, at the top of which stood realism. I would not say that the period of the cult of personality with its pronounced tendency to hierarchical thinking was without merit in creating such a pyramidal idea of ​​the development of art. The fact that realism is one of the most significant achievements of human artistic thinking, that it arose on the most valuable conquests of all literatures and schools before it, was turned into an absurdity by this theory, which generalized it to all the more significant manifestations of art. This impoverished the entire picture of artistic development to an incredible extent.

The meetings of the section for Slavic literatures until the end of the 17th century took place in a businesslike, creative atmosphere, with a marked interest in the presented reports and scientific communications. Most of them were accompanied by lively, fruitful discussions, in which prominent representatives of Slavic science took part, such as Prof. N. Gudziy ((USSR), Prof. D. S. Likhachev (USSR), Prof. J. Radojcic (Yugoslavia), Prof. R. Yagodich (Austria), etc. The above reports and learned communications were read, not including the four reports presented at the plenary session in honor of the 1100th anniversary of the work of Cyril and Methodius.

The word was first used by Sartre: "One of the most peculiar features of our literary age is that here and there there have appeared stirring and purely negative works which we might call anti-novels. In this category I would place the works of Nabokov, of Evelyn Vaux, and in a certain sense, "The Counterfeiters of Money" (by André Gide). Anti-novels retain the appearance and contours of the novel; they are works of the imagination which present fictitious characters and tell their stories. But this is to disappoint us more: it is a question of questioning the novel itself, at the moment when it seems to us that it is being built, to have it destroyed before our eyes, to write the novel of a novel that does not and cannot be made, to create a fiction that, compared to the great compositions of Dostoevsky and Meredith, is what Miró's painting "The Murder of Painting" is compared to Rembrandt and Rubens.

The last three months of each year are some of the busiest in French literary life. During these three months, French publishers compete to publish new books, mainly novels, which participate in the great competition for the Goncourt, Théophraste Re-Nodo, Femina, Enteralie, Medici prizes... This revival of the literary market causes considerable concern to literary critics in the pages of the authoritative Parisian newspapers and weeklies such as Le Monde, Le Figaro Literaire, Le Nouvelle Literaire, Le Lettre Française, Carrefour, and Express. Often, the pages of these newspapers carry out that "triage" that greatly facilitates the final decisions of the numerous juries called upon to determine the lucky laureates from among the large number of candidates. Of course, sometimes factors that are more interested in the material side also influence the selection of laureates - these are the publishers, who have their own connections in the composition of the committees themselves. Naturally, this is no secret. The competition in this regard is great, the tension is strong. Because - what does it mean for an author, for his novel and therefore for his publisher to be awarded the Goncourt Prize, the monetary value of which is only five thousand old French francs or today's fifty... This means a dizzying rise in the barometer of circulation: from the initial five thousand copies, the "awarded" book begins to be published in successive editions of a thousand copies each, to reach a circulation of over one hundred, two hundred and often three hundred thousand copies. Would Françoise Sagan - despite the advertising of her publisher Julier - have reached half a million copies or even more if she had not received the critics' prize and if - this is also of great importance in France - the laudatory words of Françoise Mauriac and the late eminent literary critic Robert Kemp had not appeared in print for her first book, "Good afternoon, sadness"! Indeed, Françoise Sagan was a rare exception in terms of the circulation of her books, since not only her award-winning novel marked a record number in sales (810 thousand), but also her subsequent books: "A Famous Smile" and "In a Month, in a Year" marked impressive figures in their circulation: the first 500 thousand, the second 400 thousand.

The twenty letters of Anton Strashimirov published here were written to Kiril Hristov (1—13) and Stefan G. Gidikov (14-20). They cover the period 1897-1923. A number of moments from the life and work of Anton Strashimirov still remain unclear. The documentary heritage of the writer has not yet been fully collected and studied. His correspondence with a number of our prominent writers, poets and public figures is still scattered among various institutes and private individuals. Only a minimal part of it has been published.1 In 1897, the writer returned from abroad with accumulated material and had a great desire to publish a literary magazine. He was forced to turn to various magazines and ask to edit their literary departments. Despite his reluctance, he became a teacher in Vidin (p. 14-15). This is where his connections with Kiril Hristov began. After a break of several years, in 1906 Strashimirov again began publishing the magazine "Nash Zhivot". In his letters from that time to Kiril Hristov, who was in Germany, he reveals a number of moments about the editing of the magazine, about his struggle with Dr. Krastev's magazine "Misl" and the literary circle around it (p. 4-13).

Much has been written about the life and work of the poet of "Hidden Cries." And almost always with love and admiration for his rich artistic nature, with sincere piety for his original poetry. Debelyanov's poetry survived many of the critics' incorrect views of it, it withstood the objective assessment of time. Narrowing the circle of social impact of Debelyanov's poetry, artificially placing it within certain frameworks, our literary criticism of the past has accumulated quite a few prejudices about its essence, declaring it the poetry of symbolism - although freed from its extreme forms, from its unconditional aesthetic requirements. Critics continued to search for symbolism, "irreality" in it, to categorize and generalize, to formulate and deny formulas, and Debelyanov's poetry continued to live, to excite hearts, to inspire a love of life. Because in its most significant achievements it acquired the meaning of poetry-confession, of poetry-fate.

1963 is a jubilee year in the history of Bulgarian-Ukrainian literary ties. A century ago, Rayko Zhinzifov's book "New Bulgarian Collection" was published in Moscow and marked the beginning of the influence of the great Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko on the Bulgarian reader. Therefore, the appearance this year of Olena Shpileva's work "T. G. Shevchenko and Bulgarian Literature",1 in which this issue is examined in its hundred-year development, acquires special significance.

Taking his place among the greatest humanist writers of the 20th century, Karel Čapek is still insufficiently studied. European educated and gifted with a flexible analytical mind, this "terrible child" of Slavism from the lineage of the great French rationalists-mockers often escapes the literary criticism cutter, mainly due to the deceptive simplicity of his artistic manner. Everything is supposedly in order: the images - images, albeit slightly caricatured, the plots - plots with all their criminal twists, the language - emphatically pure and clear, and then, as if out of nowhere, you are grabbed by an insidious subtext that makes you "suspicious" of the author's real intentions. The mystery "what exactly does he want to tell us", which in turn arises in each of his works, is even more intensified by his undetermined, albeit generally humane political position. If we add the aesthetic diversity of Čapek's work, it will become clear why so many contradictory opinions, misunderstandings, and even erroneous opinions have accumulated around him.

Slavic studies in Norway have their support at the University of Oslo, at the Slavic Institute in the same city, and in some editorial offices of progressive newspapers and magazines. Prominent Slavicists are Professor Christian Stang, Professor A. Galis, and Professor Krag. According to the famous Soviet linguist Bernstein, Professor Stang is the first accentologist in Slavic philology. "When Stang publishes a new work, we, Soviet researchers, put everything else aside to get acquainted with it," says Berstein. Professor Erik Krag was also among the Norwegian delegates. He read a report at the congress on the topic "Some Notes on Dostoevsky's Style" (an excerpt from his book on Dostoevsky, which was published last year). The Russian scholar Pustovoit, in the discussions after the report, pointed out some characteristic differences in the language of the young and older Dostoevsky, noting that the report could also be interesting for linguists. Among the eight delegates from Norway at the Fifth International Slavic Congress was the Norwegian literary critic Martin Nag. The tall, blue-eyed son of the distant side of the fjords, about whom we know so little, aroused undisguised interest and sympathy among the delegates from the moment he appeared. He was born in 1927 in the city of Stavanger. He graduated in Slavic studies in Oslo. As a literary, theater critic and translator from Slavic languages, he shows particular interest in the work of Mayakovsky, on whom he wrote his doctoral dissertation. He has translated poems by Tvardovsky, Akhmadulina, and Rozhdestvensky into Norwegian. A great friend of Bulgaria, Martin Nag is an active figure in the Norwegian-Bulgarian Society in Oslo. An enthusiastic popularizer of Bulgarian literature in Norway, he has already translated quite a few works by Bulgarian poets, including the poem "September" by Geo Milev. He is currently working on translations of contemporary Bulgarian poetry. The young Norwegian scholar collaborated as a literary critic in the newspaper "Friheten", an organ of the Norwegian Communist Party. At one of the meetings of the Slavic Congress, M. Nag read a report on the topic "Vaptsarov and Mayakovsky". The report, read in Bulgarian, was very well received by the delegates, especially the Bulgarians. Recently, articles written by Martin Nag have appeared in the pages of the Norwegian press, in which the young Slavic scholar shares with his compatriots his impressions of the Fifth International Slavic Congress and of our country and people.

The 5th International Congress of Slavists is a "Slavistic Olympiad" in the figurative definition of Dr. Karol Rosenbaum from the Institute of Slovak Literature. And for all those Czechoslovak Delegates who told the press about their impressions. For Prof. Fr. Burianek, Prof. F. Vodichka, for Acad. Jul. Dolansky and Acad. A. Mraz, the Congress was a monumental forum of international Slavic science; Monumental in the number of participants, in the hospitality of the hosts, with its numerous sections and subsections, and a wide range of topics and issues. By revealing the external monumentality of this "comprehensive" Congress - against a constant background of their fascination with our country and our people - our Czechoslovak friends at the same time point out the negative sides of this external monumentality, give recommendations for necessary qualitative changes for the work of the next 6th Slavic Congress, which will take place, as is known, in Prague and Bratislava. And from now on it is quite obvious that the Czechoslovak hosts will make sure that the thematic and problematic quantity does not atomize the scientific conversations and that the ground is generally created for a focused, creative discussion.

On December 30, 1963, an expanded meeting of the Scientific Council was held, at which the report on the scientific and research activities of the institute in the past 1963 was discussed and adopted. In his report, the director of the institute, Stoyko Bozhkov, made an analysis of the main achievements and weaknesses in scientific work and outlined the upcoming tasks. He considered the past year under the sign of the struggle to establish the Leninist line in the development of our art and literature. The party leadership's concern for the purity and sharpness of our ideological weapons, the principled struggle against the influences of bourgeois ideology and decadent Western culture helped to unite the forces of creative workers, to focus attention on the sound principles of party and nationalism. The open, clear and truthful party criticism of a number of passions, which found the brightest expression in the speech of Dr. T. Zhivkov "Communist Ideology - the Supreme Principle of Our Literature and Art" helped to create an atmosphere of greater trust between artists, to unite forces and, by rejecting the contagious rot of decadent literature, lack of ideas and formalism, to direct efforts towards creative development of the problems of our contemporary development.