New work on Bulgarian folklore

In its relatively long development, since 1842, when Iv. A. Bogorov published the first collection of Bulgarian folk songs and proverbs, Bulgarian folklore studies have achieved significant successes not only in terms of collecting and publishing folklore materials, but also in their research. However, one important gap, which until recently remained unfilled, was the absence of more significant comprehensive and generalizing works on Bulgarian written folk poetic creation, with the necessary scientific depth and competence. The reviews, which were placed in the past mainly in some textbooks on Bulgarian literature, such as Al. T. Balan in his "Bulgarian Literature" (1896) and others, very valuable for their time, today can no longer be fully used due to the often outdated and scientifically overcome views that are advocated in them, and also due to the significantly smaller amount of materials on which they are built. The prominent gap in our science of Bulgarian folk poetic creativity was largely filled in the past 1959 with the appearance of two photo-chronicle works of important importance, namely "Bulgarian Folk Songs" by Prof. Y. Ivanov (published by the Institute of Bulgarian Literature at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) and "Bulgarian Folklore" by Prof. P. Dinekov. Prof. P. Dinekov's book presents the first part of his comprehensive review of Bulgarian folklore, the second part of which is due to be published in the near future. Compared to what has been done in this field to date, it represents a very serious attempt to assess Bulgarian poetic folk art from the point of view of modern progressive science, by clarifying and criticizing all outdated explanations and concepts based mainly on the experience of Soviet folklore studies, which the author has carefully studied.