Книжка-2

1963 Book 2 Contents

Nowadays, the call for literature and art to contribute to the construction of the soul, to the renewal of the morality of modern man is increasingly insistent, overly insistent. They must participate in the great and complex battle for the destruction of some - obsolete - moral values ​​and the establishment of others - new and necessary. Artists, musicians and poets need to be involved in the grandiose task of life in our rapidly developing century: the re-education of the individual personality. They must enrich it with ethics, which is drawn from the leading positions of life. But from art, in addition to sinking into the depths of human soul and its renewal, something else is required. It must become a free and unforced source of joy and inspiration" (Program of the CPSU). It must ennoble with its most immediate ideological, ethical and aesthetic impact. These requirements, sounded categorically, oblige us to look more closely at the complex, unified essence of artistic creativity. It is necessary to embrace it comprehensively, rejecting those ossified, didactically theses concepts that until recently did not allow art to educate and entertain, to provide pleasure, to be a bright source of human joy. The need for a more complete and more penetrating interpretation of art forces us again and again to return to the principled essence of a basic aesthetic concept, sometimes neglected: the artistic method.

In the history of Bulgarian literature, Vasil Drumev occupies a certain place not only as a fiction writer and playwright, but also with his versatile critical activity. His literary-critical, cultural-historical and other articles create for him a name of a gifted and educated man of letters, who worked with love and understanding for the development of national literature, science, culture. He is one of the few Renaissance writers who received a relatively more systematic education and had the opportunity to study the literatures of other nations for a longer period. Thus, the natural talent of the author of the first Bulgarian novel, the aspiration that possessed him since adolescence and to serve the spiritual revival of his people with his pen find favorable conditions for maturation and development. And if the talented writer had not changed his calling precisely in the heyday of his creative powers, if he had not accepted the spiritual dignity, he would undoubtedly have enriched our national artistic and theoretical-critical thought to a much higher degree.

Like any science, literary history "is not only a system of concepts (categories, laws). Science is always at the same time a method of knowledge. It is always not only already achieved knowledge, but also knowledge-process, knowledge-aspiration, knowledge arising from practice... 1 As for the subject of literary history, its system, the question is relatively clear - this is (generally speaking) our literary heritage. And insofar as disputes are still being waged here whether a given third-rate writer or a completely insignificant work should be included in it - then in essence these are again disputes about the method, not about the system, since in its conclusions and laws it only consolidates the results of the method. While the system is the conservative, restraining side in the process of knowledge, the method is the revolutionary, creative one. It moves science forward, it opens up new paths for it. That is precisely why now, when our literary studies - as well as all sociological sciences - are faced with new, grandiose tasks in connection with the upbringing of the new man, the man of communism, the question of method becomes so important. In fact, this is a question of the future of literary history, of its transformation into an effective, active social force. Method is an eternal movement - despite its relative definiteness, it is constantly changing and developing in order to meet the new needs, the new tasks that modernity sets before literary history. That is why the question of sociology and dogmatism in literary criticism did not arise by chance. The acute form in which it was posed is a reflection of the sharp need for a radical transformation of our literary science in order to be able to respond to its new tasks.

The development of contemporary Bulgarian literature and the emergence of various creative trends in it require an increasingly insistent consideration of the issues of style by our theoretical thought. We are far from the illusion that we will resolve the issue. We will be satisfied if we only manage to highlight some of its aspects. Style is a tough nut to crack. It does not obey dry dogmas, pedantic rationality. It must be approached with broader understandings of art. A separate formula cannot contain the wealth of styles. Before deriving laws about the essence, power and effect of style, we must penetrate the living tissue of artistic phenomena.

The creators of artistic values ​​are a few people marked by fate, who cross the borders of many countries, inspiring more than one generation. The significance and the charming power of these creative personalities are all the greater and more comprehensive, the more organic the connection between artistic achievements and public behavior, between ideological-aesthetic insights and civic-ethical positions. Such people, like a beacon, attract the eyes of all who live with the impulses of a more intense spiritual life, possessed by higher ideals for social well-being and moral elevation. Readers turn to the work of such artists in order to become related to their soul and thinking, to find support for their torments and searches. Such a source of wisdom and knowledge, of ideological-aesthetic experiences and civic-humanistic ideals is undoubtedly the creative biography of Lyudmil Stoyanov, who has already crossed the last quarter of a century. For more than half a century, the personality of the writer and citizen Lyudmil Stoyanov has been towering in our literary and cultural life. It evokes love and gratitude not only in our country, but also among the cultural community of other countries. His life and creative path is truly rarely instructive. Many of the problems of the time, the anxieties and insights of several generations, the trends of our national literary and cultural development for decades have found embodiment in his work. Having gone through harsh trials, having paid tribute to the fashionable aesthetic trends of the beginning of the century, L. Stoyanov demonstrated ideological and moral stability, overcoming dangerous passions, in order to harden and rise later with all his stature as a humanist creator and a communist citizen.

Only recently, in connection with the XIII Congress of the Union of Polish Writers, has a broad and deeply principled discussion unfolded about the state and prospects of Polish literature. Something new was also felt in the atmosphere, in the spirit of the sessions of the congress itself - greater principle. Attention was directed primarily to key, central problems, while at previous congresses the emphasis was often on secondary issues of a strictly professional nature. Even with the best desire for a conscientious and objective presentation of literary facts, one is not immune from the danger of falling into one-sided assessments, since in Polish literature there is such a diversity of creative individuals, and some creators have undergone such an evolution that information, especially the shorter ones, is quite difficult. Still, some phenomena are very obvious. If one compares the literature in Poland of the last six or seven years with the literature of the previous period, any unbiased reader will see that the newer literature stands on a higher artistic level, is characterized by depth, richness, and dynamism. The development of individual creative personalities has become much more organic, free, and unforced.

One of the most solid Western publications, which represents the new trends in bourgeois literature, in bourgeois aesthetic and philosophical thought, is the magazine "Merkur" published in Stuttgart, the Federal Republic of Germany. In it we will find articles and materials on all those issues that are currently being discussed and speculated on in the West, and attempts are being made to somehow renew the well-known and already outdated idealistic theories. In art, the positions of the so-called avant-garde are especially discussed. The concept of "avant-gardism" has acquired such a broad meaning in the articles of Western authors that they interpret it and turn it into a platform for the most diverse points of view.

From the time of Tacitus, when the metonymization of the concept of style began, to the present day, things have happened and continue to happen with it that have hardly happened with other concepts: "style" has expanded and continues to expand its scope in a threatening manner... Modern literary critics rightly complain that in their field style is still an unscientific term, that it still lacks any definite and generally binding content. However, if we take a look at the work of their colleagues - theorists of music, painting, architecture - we come across the same terminological uncertainty, which manifests itself even more sharply in the attempt to elevate the term style from the level of the theory of a type of art to the level of aesthetics. Meanwhile, "style" is also entering the terminology of anthropologists, ethnographers, psychologists (behaviorists, for example), cyberneticists... There is hardly any point in talking about its use in everyday speech and journalism ("colloquial" and "journalistic" style), since the title of this note has also fallen victim to this terminological "miscellany".

The outbreak of the Crimean War (November 1, 1853) aroused new hopes among Polish patriots. Feverish excitement also gripped the Polish emigration in Paris and London, as it believed that the war that had broken out would turn into a general war for the liberation of the peoples. All eyes were turned to the East. All political groups believed that the fateful hour had struck and were coming up with their own programs for action. The Polish democrats in London, the so-called Centralization, wanted to provoke an uprising in Poland itself. The "Young Democracy" ("Kolo") in Paris, headed by Mieroslavsky, Wysocki and Elzhanowski, intended to create a Polish legion in Turkey in agreement with Napoleon III. The aristocratic camp of Polish emigrants "Hotel Lambert", whose leader, Prince A. Czartoryski, was recognized by the French and English cabinets, after the declaration of war, as the sole representative of Poland in emigration, was striving for the same goal. French public opinion was favorable to Polish aspirations, and it was said in Paris that Napoleon III had a sincere intention of restoring Poland. Prince Czartoryski conducted lengthy negotiations with the French and English governments to secure certain guarantees in favor of Poland against the proposed participation of Polish troops on the side of the Allies. His first associate and nephew Władysław Zamoyski went to Constantinople in January 1854 to negotiate personally with the Porte about the formation of a Polish legion in the Turkish army. With the same purpose, Vysotsky had already arrived in the Turkish capital (November 2, 1853) as an envoy of the Parisian "Kolo".

Recently, the collection “Inter-Slavic Literary Relations”1 (volume two) was published, published by the Institute of Literature “T. G. Shevchenko at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, which is a continuation of the book under the same title, printed in 1958. From the introductory notes to the collection we learn that from now on the publication will be periodic. This cannot but please Bulgarian Slavists who work in the field of Bulgarian-Ukrainian relations, since the purpose of the collection is to shed light on the connections of Ukrainian literature with the literatures of all Slavic peoples. The book consists of three sections: On the 100th anniversary of the death of T. G. Shevchenko; On the 150th anniversary of the birth of Yu. Slovatsky; From the history of literary relations; Development of modern Slavic literatures.

The memory of Krum Velkov takes me back to the distant 1932, when I was secretary of the Sofia organization of the Union of Labor Writers. (There were no other organizations in the country like this union, but we had conceived them as groups of young literary cadres, and therefore in the "center" we had a "central leadership" and a "Sofia organization".) We had a meeting in one of the rooms of the "Maika" school (behind the Courthouse). I was just calling on the comrades to sit down and begin the agenda, when Todor Pavlov came to me, to the rostrum, with an unknown younger man. "Meet Keshish Parvan," said uncle Todor to me. I remembered this name from someone who had spoken under this pseudonym in Bakal's magazine "Nov Pat" in 1924-1925. It turned out that Keshish Parvan was Krum Velkov from Pernik, who after being expelled from high school worked as a locksmith and machinist and participated in the September Uprising in 1923 in the city of Preslav. He had written a novel about this uprising and was now carrying it - on the recommendation of Todor Pavlov, we, the then communist writers from the active ranks of the literary front, had to read it and find a way to publish it. I read it in the next few days, Georgi Karaslavov and other comrades read it, and we all agreed that the novel was very good. We decided to publish it as a book issue of our newspaper "RLF".

The Institute of Literature at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences has already begun publishing the four-volume "History of Bulgarian Literature". The management of the institute had been preparing for this important and responsible work for many years. It carried out a great deal of preparatory work. After discussion and broad debate, a general periodization of our literature was adopted based on important and essential features, the characteristics of the socio-economic formations known in historical development, their determining impact on ideology, and through the ideological atmosphere on artistic creativity, as well as the internal laws of literary development" (10). The history of Bulgarian literature is divided into three main periods: 1. Old Bulgarian literature - from the 9th century to the middle of the 18th century (the writing of "Slavonic-Bulgarian History" by hieromonk Paisii of Hilendar); 2. New Bulgarian literature - from the middle of the 18th century to 9. IX. 1944, divided into two subperiods: a. Literature of the Revival - from the middle of the 18th century to 1878; b. Literature from the Liberation to 9. IX. 1944; 3. Literature during the era of the construction of socialism - from 9. IX. 1944 to the present day (10). "History of Bulgarian Literature" will be published in four volumes: one volume for the first and third periods, and two volumes for the second period - one for each subsection.

Last year, the first volume of the Brief Literary Encyclopedia appeared - a somewhat limited encyclopedic publication, the creators of which, according to their own words, set themselves the task of "giving, within the limited framework of a brief literary encyclopedia, as complete an idea of ​​the literary process as possible", paying attention not only to the established classical literatures in the history of mankind, but also to the artistic creations of a number of younger peoples. Our literature has also found its place in this publication. Over the past two decades, Soviet Bulgarian studies have achieved considerable success in popularizing our literature in the Soviet Union, as well as in independently developing some problems of our literary history. These successes are enshrined in the works of a number of famous Soviet Bulgarian scholars, such as N. S. Derzhavin, K. N. Derzhavin, D. F. Markov, K. A. Koperzhinsky, V. I. Zlidnev, I. M. Sheptunov, N. I. Kravtsov, as well as by younger scholars, such as G.Ya. Ilina, A.I. Khvatov, G.D. Gachev, etc. Given these significant traditions, it is not surprising that our literature also found a broad and faithful reflection in the "Short Literary Encyclopedia".

The appearance of the book “On Some Peculiarities of Bulgarian Poetry 1923-1944” by Rozalia Lykova is an interesting phenomenon. This is an attempt to systematize the vast material on our poetic development for two decades, to outline the directions and give portraits of the significant representatives of our poetry at that time. The author Rozalia Lykova has studied the entire literary life of that time. She has encountered many problems, successfully and with arguments she has rejected a number of obsessions and errors in the evaluations of poetry. Her book has not remained at the level of what has been established and said so far. Although it is based on rich historical-literary and factual material, Lykova tries to supplement and enrich our ideas about the poets, to complete their creative image. In a certain sense, she moves forward the attitude of our literary history and criticism towards the work of these poets.

There is very little talk about translations of works of art in our country. Or if there is talk, the conversations will be more in general terms than specific, about individual works. And readers end up with both good and impossible translations. This is the case, for example, with translations from Yugoslav literature. Their qualities are completely different - from good and artistic ("Autobiography" by Branislav Nušić, the prose of Miroslav Krlezha, Ivo Andrić, Ivan Csankar, etc.) to bad and scandalous (the satires of Radoe Domanović, "The Survivors of Nikoletina Bursace" by Branko Čopić, and "Impurity Blood" by Borisav Stanković). The last three books are perhaps the worst translations published in our country in the past ten years.

The reason for writing the present commentary was given to me by the previously unknown letters of Anton Strashimirov to Naicho Tsanov, published by comrade Trifon Valov, and in particular some of the historical explanations that he gave to them. This publication is useful because it really contributes to clarifying some moments of the writer's life and activity, namely, when his restless spirit, albeit temporarily, took refuge under the wing of the radical democratic party that was then forming in our country. Incidentally, the published letters show how much Anton Strashimirov was interested in the course of the Macedonian liberation movement and how much this movement was connected with political life in Sofia.

In issue 4 of the journal "Literary Thought" a note by Lyuben Georgiev "For greater objectivity of scientific information" was published, in which the editorial staff of the "Abstract Bulletin" at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Department of Literary Studies was subjected to criticism. On the occasion of this criticism, the editor of the bulletin, Dr. Krastyo Genov, issued a counter-reply, which was placed in issue 6 of the journal. In response to his explanations, the journal received a new note from L. Georgiev. It analyzes the objections raised by Dr. Genov and establishes that the editor of the bulletin in fact rejects all critical remarks. L. Georgiev writes: Of the 14 cases of omitted books and two collections, the editor has reason to protest only one - the book by M. Yanakiev, which was published a year earlier and accidentally ended up on the list of Books from 1961.

On 16. I. of this year, in the section on Bulgarian literature before the Liberation, three works were discussed: by Iliya Konev - Hristo Botev in Serbian and Croatian literature, by Docho Lekov - Karavelov's interest in the folklore and ethnography of the Slavic peoples, and by Stefka Tarinska - The development of the feuilleton during the Bulgarian Renaissance. The following spoke: prof. P. Dinekov, S. Baeva, D. Lekov, St. Tarinska, P. Totev, B. Nichev. The work of Il. Konev was positively evaluated in view of the interesting topic and its development. The chapter on the influence of Botev's poetry on the work of the Croatian poet August Harambašić was indicated as the most valuable. The author was recommended to introduce greater systematicity and proportionality into the presentation and to increase the analysis of the examples.