"Folk Illusions and Artistic Truth"

In his new book with the above title, Zhelyu Avdzhiev examines from Marxist-Leninist positions the aesthetic originality and place of populism and populist literature in the development of Bulgarian literature. Having correctly grasped the specifics of this characteristic phenomenon, the author invests enough energy to characterize it comprehensively and to point out its previously unexposed features, to present its most important representatives in a new light. In our country, there have been no deliberate discussions on the issues of the essence of populist literature, although these issues have interested many literary scholars, as a result of which they have been quite clarified and a considerable amount of literature has accumulated. In the work under consideration, however, the problems arising around the character and essence of populist literature are analyzed for the first time in such detail and exhaustively in a separate, independent monographic study. Until now, we have not had a comprehensive literary-historical study in which to examine the original character, specific development and unique essence of populist literature in Bulgaria. The work under consideration is precisely such a study, in which the author has set himself the task of thoroughly studying this literature, and in a newer direction.