Georgi S. Rakovski and the development of Bulgarian literature

"History will have to think about which immortal figure to attribute you to!" - this is how Vazov exclaims in amazement in his remarkable "Epic of the Forgotten", when he recreates the image of Rakovski. The folk poet is as if stunned by the personality and versatility of the work of this "mad dreamer, an impossible image", seething with "giant love" and "satanic enmity", who boldly peered into the dark past to reveal the tragic present and embrace the dreamed future with his eagle gaze. For all its romantic hyperbolicity, this poetic glorification seems to most accurately capture Rakovski's extraordinary scale in ideological insights and revolutionary scope, in national impulses and efforts to serve devotedly a great idea with thought and deed, with pen and weapon. One is truly amazed by this all-encompassing, revolutionary, uniquely original, spiritually rich personality. The scope of the revolutionary, the searches of the historian, the insights of the scientist, and the visions of the poet - everything is nourished by a deeply realized and suffered national ideal, which found a kind of synthesis and expression in his entire activity. The scale and significance of this activity seem to go beyond national dimensions and remind us of the great conquests of the human spirit in general.