Once again about Bulgarian-Serbian literary relations in the 19th century.

In book 2 of the journal "Literary Thought" the article by V. Smohovska and B. Nichev "On Bulgarian-Serbian Literary Relations and on Some Issues of Comparative Literary Studies" was printed. In fact, it was conceived and carried out as a review for my book "Bulgarian-Serbian Literary Relations in the 19th Century (Until Liberation)". It does not specifically raise or resolve a single question of comparative literary studies on material from our or any other national literature, although at its very beginning a few words are said about "the most beautiful and fruitful manifestations of friendship and amity between the Balkan peoples". That is why I will not dwell here on the problem of comparative literary studies - a very important problem that cannot and should not be resolved incidentally. This area of ​​modern literary studies is attracting the attention of an increasing number of specialists in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, in our country and elsewhere. It is desirable that similar articles appear on the pages of the journal "Literary Thought", that a creative conversation be held on the fundamental and so complex questions of comparative literary studies. In this way, the path of the unauthorized presentation as an original thesis of opinions already known in science or of insufficiently verified and dubious thoughts will be blocked. Every book can be viewed from a variety of positions, and in it one can find successfully written pages, acceptable solutions, or findings that do not meet certain requirements. Even with its positive sides, it often suggests new possibilities, directs the specialized reader to new moments in the problem under study that were not previously noticed. It may even be that unsuccessful solutions prevail in a given book, but even in this case, scientific criticism is obliged to resist them with arguments in order to contribute as much as possible to a more comprehensive clarification of one or another issue, to proceed from the tasks that its author has set for himself. And when this is the case, any insinuations, rude epithets, etc., which inevitably replace the analysis with subjective preferences and qualifications, become completely inappropriate. And unfortunately, this is exactly what happened with the article by V. Smohovska and B. Nichev.