On the nature and development of realism in Bulgarian literature during the Renaissance

Until recently, the question of the beginning of critical realism in Bulgarian literature was undisputed - Lyuben Karavelov was considered its founder. Recently, however, G. Tsanev came up with an article "The Beginning of Critical Realism in Bulgarian Literature", in which he believes that "a careful examination of the facts is necessary, which would lead us to new conclusions". In this article, he reviews and analyzes Slaveykov's work, emphasizing its critical-realistic character. He also focuses on his literary-critical articles and his translated literature. Based on our social reality, G. Tsanev points to critical realism as the main trend in Bulgarian literature, and its first representative is P. R. Slaveykov. On the same occasion, P. Zarev has recently written an article - "Our Literary History and the Wealth of the Literary Process". The author focuses more on the analysis of the aesthetic views and artistic practice of P. R. Slaveykov. As a result, he comes to the conclusion that Slaveykov's work "by character, by its system of exposition, is the work of pre-critical realism and is a transition to it." 1 While trying to reveal the general direction" of his poetry, he adopts a position that is, in our opinion, erroneous, that the main feature of Slaveykov's work is his "specific interest in the intimate, in the world of the awakened personality" - his love poetry. On the other hand, he believes that since Slaveykov is a realist with a very versatile attitude to reality, without focusing on the specific conflicts and trends of the time - his realism is characterized by "completeness" and "multifacetedness" in depicting life, without a single definite and consistently expressed tendency. This prevents him from growing as a critical realist. Without agreeing with the idea that Slaveykov's work lacks a specific and consistently expressed trend, or that it lacks a focus on the specific conflicts and trends of the time, nevertheless, a number of the author's thoughts and observations in this part of the article are so interesting that they make the reader think again about these problems.