Georgi Markov

Debelyanov has a direct emotional relationship with art, a pure intimate connection with it. It attracts him primarily with its specifically aesthetic qualities, and he perceives works of art more with his heart than with his mind. As an artist, he is excited by the general problems of aesthetics. However, the tendency to participate in literary discussions through the press, to impose views and assessments on the public, is alien to him. Literary-theoretical and critical work in general does not attract him. Therefore, every newly discovered literary material that has come out from under the poet's nose is of serious interest to the researcher. The three articles offered here - About an Old Song, "Letter from the Village" and "The Last Outlaw" - are currently the only known developed literary works and, along with the "literary notes" in the magazine "Zveno" (1914), provide direct data on Debelyanov's aesthetic views. They express thoughts and views that with irrefutable force shatter the legend of the "purebred" symbolist Debelyanov and reveal his true attitude towards modernism. In the light of these materials, previously familiar statements acquire a different, true meaning. Written in a clear and emotional language, they reveal the innermost ideas of the post, its aesthetic ideal. The articles, especially the first two, have not only literary and historical value. The issues raised in them still retain their relevance today, because they are related to the ethics of writing and the attitude of art to life. The interpretation that Debelyanov gives them, regardless of the contradictions of thinking, imposes itself with its moral idealism and straightforwardness. And although written at a different time and from different positions, they sound contemporary in many respects. The central question in the first article is the question of the conditions of creative work and the ethics of the writer under the conditions of capitalism, which by its nature is hostile to art and condemns the honest artist to misery and humiliation.

P. Zarev's book "Style and Artistry" expresses that new spirit in Marxist aesthetics that has been felt over the last five or six years in the Soviet Union and in our country. Its characteristic features are a dislike for dogmatic Phraseology, an aspiration to overcome sociologism and epistemology, and an increased interest in the specific aspects of artistic depiction. In addition to clarifying general methodological positions, this new spirit also means emphasized attention to special aesthetic issues that will bring us closer to the intimate and unique in the poetic image. P. Zarev strives to follow the new trends not by theorizing on the basic principles, but by implementing them in more specific studies. In the pathos of the individual articles, we perceive a general concept that determines both the interests and conclusions of the author. And although it does not have a monographic character, although it is composed of individual articles, each of which arose on a specific occasion and treats an independent issue, the book is internally unified. From beginning to end, it is permeated by a characteristic aesthetic concept - the concept of the aesthetic wealth of literature. We constantly feel the conscious struggle against simplification and dogmatism, the desire to impress upon us a more precise artistic criterion. One may not agree with all the conclusions and solutions on the topics considered, one may even think that the author has not been able to fully fulfill the task set, this is a separate issue. However, there is no doubt that he has identified a correct and fruitful direction in the understanding and study of fiction and that in his efforts he has achieved a number of positive results. One cannot properly assess the book "Style and Artistry" if one does not penetrate its inner pathos, nor understand the fundamental meaning of the individual articles if one does not look at them in the light of this basic pathos. The main supporting points of the author's concept are two. The first emphasizes the aesthetic nature of artistic content, and the second - the subjective - creative nature of artistic reflection.

When, after the tragic September days of 1923, the voice of Geo Milev rose boldly and fearlessly, many were astonished by it. That irreconcilable opponent of realism and an exalted defender of the theory of "pure" art, who tirelessly propagated modernism in our country, spoke with unsuspected passion against fascism and reaction in public life, against formalism and lack of ideas in poetry. It was as if a miracle had happened, as if from the ashes of the people's struggle and suffering, like a mythical phoenix, a completely new artist had been born - a revolutionary, a democrat, a realist. In fact, no miracle had happened. Anyone who comprehensively and directly examines the poet's ideological and creative path and approaches it without prejudice will notice that there is much greater continuity between the different periods of his development than we have previously acknowledged. Geo's path begins with civic poetry, to end with it again, but already on a higher level, more generalized, directed towards a contemporary, definite social ideological direction. " These words of Georgi Bakalov contain a profound truth, much deeper than even their author himself included in them. Because G. Bakalov has in mind only a few early civic works (the poem "On a Solemn Day", the translations of revolutionary poetry published in the magazine "Borba"), and today we can support the same conclusion with many works that the poet created even during the period of his most extreme modernist C Enthusiasms.

Although it is risky to guess, it seems to me that if Pavel Matev had not been nurtured by the socialist revolution, he would hardly have linked his fate with fiction. That grain of poetic talent that he carried within him would have frozen out amidst the cold whirlwinds of life. The socialist revolution created him - both as a citizen and as a poet. It made a fighter and a person out of the "timid peasant" who steals sunflower cakes from the yards and throws slingshots at the windows, who searches for bird nests in the thorns and wades through puddles with punctured shoes. It instilled in him responsibility before the class and the people, drew him into the ranks of the resistance, and he became a fighter, a fighter of the Communist Party, inspired by the idea of ​​human superiority. When victory came, he chose the weapon of poetic speech to fulfill his duty before those with whom he walked shoulder to shoulder. The heroic time has passed. The memory of the thousands who died remained. A grandiose construction began. Pavel Matev was inspired by the beauty of socialism and it inspired him to create. It and the memory of the dead. Thus, the revolution nursed the poet through its two different phases, and he became its singer. One unchanging commandment follows Pavel Matev - to serve it faithfully and honestly. Its path is also his, its manhood and his creative maturation. Today we would easily find a number of false tones in his first poems. But we should not forget that they were born from his aspiration to be a soldier of the party, of the revolution, of that "devotion to loyalty" that only the unworthy do not respect.