Lilyana Minkova

"Radyanske literaturoznavstvo" ("Soviet Literary Studies") is a bimonthly magazine, an organ of the T. G. Shevchenko Institute of Literature at the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR and the Union of Ukrainian Writers. "Radyanske literaturoznavstvo" has been published since 1957. It is the peer of "Literary Thought". In nearly five years, the magazine has gained wide popularity, becoming a necessity for literary critics, teachers, students, and everyone interested in issues of literary studies. The magazine has attracted a large number of contributors from all over the country. Along with writers from Kiev, it also publishes lecturers from universities and pedagogical institutes in Lviv, Kharkov, Odessa, Kherson, Dnepropetrovsk, etc., teachers working in 130 different cities and villages of the republic, and contributors from abroad. On the pages of the magazine we find the names of prominent Ukrainian literary scholars, and alongside them the names of young, novice literary critics and historians. We will focus here on one anniversary of the magazine - the fourth, published in 1960. But since limiting ourselves to just one anniversary does not allow us to draw any conclusions about the nature of the magazine and the general directions of its development, we will refer to places and articles published in other anniversaries. At the same time, a more detailed examination of one of the anniversaries allows us to make the review more specific.

In September of this year, the great French writer, publicist and critic Louis Aragon was awarded the title of Doctor of Philosophy Honoris Causa by Charles University in Prague. Aragon's speech, delivered during the solemn ceremony, is anything but a traditional speech-response in which the new doctor thanks for the honor bestowed upon him. As Aragon himself says, in Prague he did not want to deliver the usual academic speech, suitable for Paris or Oxford, but to share his thoughts on things that excite him. Aragon's speech is dedicated to the most vital problems of contemporary realistic art, to the Question of the Theory and Practice of Socialist Realism. "As you know," Aragon addresses his listeners, "I belong to that category of men and women who for a century have thought and acted in accordance with the principle of the inseparability of theory and practice." "This principle - the writer continues - so universally recognized in all fields of science, in the field of art for some reason has not yet taken deep enough roots. Here it is often believed that the leading role belongs to theory, that first the representatives of literary science establish the theoretical premises of the work, and then the writers take them into account. That is, that it is not the artistic work that is a phenomenon that theorists must take into account, but on the contrary, that in this field the phenomena, the works must obey the theories. As a result, critics have been given the freedom, when faced with a phenomenon, a book, to measure it with the measure previously established by theorists, as if the theory were a foot and the work a shoe."

"What can be done to help the Bulgarians" ("Chem mozhno pomoch bolgaram") is one of the most interesting documents preserved in the archive of Lyuben Karavelov (National Library "Vasil Kolarov", Bulgarian Historical Archive, Fund No. 2, Archival Unit 21, p. 6-11). This is a report to the Moscow Slavophile Charity Committee, which sets out a detailed program for the creation of a Belgrade branch of the committee. The text written by Karavelov was corrected and supplemented by the Russian revolutionary democrat Ivan Gavrilovich Prizhov. Thus, the document also reveals new aspects of the cooperation between the two revolutionaries. "Chem mozhno pomoch bol garam" has repeatedly attracted the attention of researchers. The document has already had two editions. The first is by Academician Mikhail Dimitrov in "The Journalism of Lyuben Karavelov before the Publication of the Newspaper "Svoboda", S. 1957, pp. 622-625, the second by the Soviet scholar L. V. Vorobyov in "Notices of the Institute of Literature at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences", vol. IX, 1960, p. 275. The edition by Academician M. Dimitrov reflects almost exclusively Karavelov's text. It is indeed noted that there are corrections on it by another person. It is also said that according to L. V. Vorobyov this person is the Russian publicist I. G. Prizhov.

In recent years, much has been written about Karavelov. His work and political activity are examined in the works of Bulgarian and Soviet writers, historians, philosophers, and linguists. A contribution to resolving a number of issues related to the enormous work of the notable Renaissance man is also represented by the studies included in the recently published collection "Studies and Articles on Lyuben Karavelov", published by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, S. 1963. A significant part of the articles are devoted to the ideology of Lyuben Karavelov. This is perhaps due to an effort to finally resolve, albeit in general terms, the question of the nature of Karavelov's ideology, which has already been the subject of very lengthy disputes. It is to be regretted, however, that very little space has been devoted to Karavelov the writer and journalist. Two of the studies prove Karavelov's authorship of articles and other materials that have not been included in his legacy until now. The collection also examines issues related to Karavelov's attitude to the traditions of Bulgarian literature, Karavelov's work as an editor, etc. The subject matter of the collection is clearly too diverse, and this makes it very difficult to group the articles by problem. The authors have touched on different aspects of Karavelov's multifaceted activity, and uniting their studies would be rather arbitrary.

1963 is a jubilee year in the history of Bulgarian-Ukrainian literary ties. A century ago, Rayko Zhinzifov's book "New Bulgarian Collection" was published in Moscow and marked the beginning of the influence of the great Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko on the Bulgarian reader. Therefore, the appearance this year of Olena Shpileva's work "T. G. Shevchenko and Bulgarian Literature",1 in which this issue is examined in its hundred-year development, acquires special significance.

As a folklorist, Karavelov followed an interesting path of development. His teachers were primarily Russian and Ukrainian researchers of folk art. Through their works, he also became acquainted with the views of Western scholars, primarily the mythological school of Jacob Grimm and his followers. What is the place of Ukrainian folklore in Karavelov's studies and what impact did Ukrainian folkloristics have on him? It is very difficult to separate the influence of Ukrainian science from that of Russian, because they developed in extremely close unity. Scholars of both nationalities worked in close cooperation, both in Russian and Ukrainian university centers. Often folklorists of Ukrainian origin, such as O. M. Bodyansky, also deal with Russian folk art, and Russians by nationality, such as I. I. Sreznevsky, V. V. Pasek, who lived in Ukraine for a long time, collect and publish its folklore. And within the framework of Karavelov's activity, a more precise distinction of these influences can hardly be achieved even after a comprehensive study of his development as a folklorist.