Populist Illusions and Artistic Truth. Some Peculiarities of Populism and Populist Literature in Our Country

Populist ideas penetrated Bulgarian literature in the late 1980s and mainly in the 1990s. Under the influence of the populist ideology, adopted by Russian public figures and populist writers, some writers created works that make up our populist literature. This literature is limited in scope and not particularly rich in the variety of genres, ideas and images. There are not always strictly defined "pure" populist frameworks. And with the gradual experience of populist ideas in the first decade of the new century, it ceases to be a topical issue in our literary reality. Therefore, the term "populist literature" should be accepted and understood quite conditionally and with reservations. The important thing is that the works of populist writers excited contemporaries. Created in that era when the overall national appearance of our post-liberation realistic literature was taking shape, they diversified its ideological and aesthetic wealth, contributing to the strengthening of democracy and humanism within it.