Purposeful narrative

Until recently, in our literary history, the great and very interesting, for his era new writing style, South Slavic and Bulgarian writer Parteny Pavlovich, born around 1695 in the city of Silistra, did not receive the appropriate place for his literary work. He was mentioned episodically in general literary-historical reviews, noting that he was the author of a curious and meaningful autobiography, which, however, remained unknown to the mass reader; the excerpts from it in a New Bulgarian translation, printed by Professor Yordan Ivanov, pursued academic and educational purposes, so their fame hardly went far beyond the walls of the University. This gap was partly filled by an essay by Dr. V. Sl. Kiselkov about Parteny, published as the final chapter in his compiled work "Studies and Outlines of Old Bulgarian Literature", Sofia, 1956, pp. 394-398. The most comprehensive and in-depth exposition of the personality and work of Parthenius has recently been made by Bonyu St. Angelov. In his study, Angelov traces in detail the life path of Parthenius, brings to light and analyzes his larger and smaller works. The great merit of B. St. Angelov is also that, thanks to his publication, today the Bulgarian reader has at hand one of Parthenius' most important works adapted to our current spelling system: his Autobiography, published so far only once in the almost inaccessible Serbian magazine "Serbian Zion".