The position and talent of a critic

"Contemporary Literary Issues" is the new book by Stoyan Karolev. A new theoretical and critical book in our literature is not a frequent occurrence to go unnoticed. Stoyan Karolev is one of the most mature, insightful and sincere representatives of the middle generation of Marxist literary theorists and critics. He possesses a rare talent: to respond to the most acute contemporary problems, to have a clear position and at the same time to be devoid of malicious pickiness and narrow-mindedness. This is a good and moral critical talent with great erudition and true principle. The arrangement of artists or scientists by age has always seemed unconvincing to me. The characterization of "young artist" or "young critic" has often included not only benevolence, but also condescending neglect - even the "young" are already approaching "the field of life". Referring to advanced age does not give us much either. Past merits and accumulated experience are worthy of respect. However, these values ​​are often overshadowed by the selfishness of age, by conservatism, by the fear of the new. And this has more than once led to "subjective honesty, objective reaction" (at best), to falling behind the needs of the era. Both youth and maturity are equivalent, as long as they can be measured by bold talent and high value productivity. Old Goethe had much younger talent than a number of beardless Eckermanns. Proof is the second part of "Faust". Every true talent is young, since every work presupposes the original creation of unconventional, fundamentally new values, for which there is no preliminary algorithm. This general rule is powerful both over the artist and over criticism.