One of the questions

"Either good or nothing." Perhaps there are authors who prefer the Latin maxim - aut bene, aut nihil - to apply to their works. But for conscious authors, for true people of the arts, for people who do not write and print just to see their name under the title of some printed work, indifference is the greatest insult. In fact, the maxim of the wise Romans applied to the dead. But a book, a work of art, is something living, dynamic, subject to development. One must say either good or bad about it, but something must be said and said in time. I believe that this is the duty of literary criticism. Until recently, authors, especially young ones, after seeing their works printed, waited with fear and excitement to hear or read what the critics thought of them. And the critics were usually silent. It did not seem to consider it its duty to deal with newly published books, to seriously evaluate the undertakings of young authors. The established critics in particular preferred to print long and exhaustive expositions of our old, well-known authors, of Zhinzifov or Dobri Chintulov, of course, of Botev and Vazov, reaching as far as Yavorov and Yovkov. Young authors could not count, as the young Russian writers of the time did, on hearing the voice of Dobrolyubov, Belinsky and Pisarev, on seeing their works subjected to analysis by our established critics, on feeling a sure hand opening the way to literary horizons for them. Fortunately, nowadays, literary criticism and assessments of young, new authors, of poems, stories and novels, have begun to appear more regularly in our literary newspapers and magazines. Of course, not as often and regularly as for any kind of film, but still it is a joyful phenomenon and I am confident that it has a beneficial effect, when critical or negative, on the development of our literary talents.