A path to the unknown

Elin Pelin's story "Unclean Power" is one of those literary works that, through its variants and edits, can introduce us to the secrets of writing mastery, to the development of an artist, to show us the laws that he - consciously or not - constantly follows. The time interval between the first version of the story "Unclean Power" (vol. 1, 2 and 3-4 of the magazine "Sunflower" from 1909) and the final form of the first chapter of this story, which we find printed after the writer's death in the magazine "September", vol. 4 from December 1949 and which we know was written no earlier than 1947, and perhaps in 1949, this interval of 40 years is much greater than between any two edits of any other work by Elin Pelin. Therefore, here the differences will be much more distinct, more contrasting and the idea of ​​these two states - much clearer. Before us are two literary works that have a common idea, theme, characters, plot, but are different in implementation. It remains to clarify how the same events and incidents are transformed from a pale and inexpressive story into some of the most perfect pages of Bulgarian prose, in order to explain one of the mysteries of artistic creativity, in order to see what creates the power of literary art.