Todor Pavlov

Every science is a science precisely because it studies, explains, and determines first and foremost what is common (a property, an essential relationship, a law) in the things and phenomena it studies. A science that is incapable of discovering and determining what is common in the object of its research is not and cannot be a science. This is, so to speak, an axiom confirmed by the entire development of all sciences without exception—philosophical and specific, natural and social, scientific-research and scientific-applied. Aesthetics as a science is no exception to this general rule. At the same time, everything that is general is general precisely because it is given in dialectical unity with the particular and the individual. The general, which does not constitute the deep and ever deeper essence of particular and individual things, but exists as pure, bare generality in and of itself and for itself, ceases in fact to have the character and significance of the general and becomes some kind of abstract, metaphysical and ultimately mystical idea, which in various idealistic theories acquires the meaning of a transcendental divine principle or some kind of transcendental value, etc. Something that is not common to at least two things (objects, phenomena) is not and cannot be common and therefore is not and cannot be any scientific concept, category, or law.

Bulgarian scientific and cultural workers, and especially Bulgarian writers, joining the nationwide celebration of the 90th anniversary of the greatest man of our time, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, rightly dwell first of all on the new that Lenin's creative genius brought to all areas of science, culture, art, education, politics, construction, etc. One of the issues that has always deeply concerned our cultural workers and writers is the question of the party affiliation of literature and art in general. It is included in almost all scientific and general ideological sessions, meetings and conferences that are taking place and are yet to take place in our country in connection with the 90th anniversary of V. I. Lenin, and the Union of Bulgarian Writers has also organized a special scientific session dedicated to the question of the party affiliation of literature and art in general. The issue does not leave the pages of the relevant magazines, newspapers and other periodicals and non-periodical publications.

As can be seen from the planned events and from the very agenda of the current scientific session, the importance attached to the anniversary year in honor of the 700th anniversary of the Boyana frescoes is great, and this is completely understandable. Like all the planned events, the scientific session with its rich and important agenda poses a number of extremely complex and extremely timely questions to all of us. This will be seen from the very content of the reports. Here I will allow myself to dwell a few words on the significance of our session and in general on the anniversary celebration of the 700th anniversary of the Boyana frescoes. The entire celebration and especially the scientific session have the task of clarifying some issues of general ideological and political importance. These include, first of all, the question of our past and present attitude towards the Byzantine cultural heritage and, in particular, towards Byzantine art from the time before and after the Boyana frescoes. Two essential mistakes can be made here - one of a cosmopolitan and national-nihilistic nature, the other of a nationalistic-chauvinistic nature. There have been, and still are, historians, archaeologists, art critics who claim that the Boyana frescoes and our painting of that time in general had an essentially Byzantine character, developed along the path along which the art of the Byzantine Empire of that time developed. Insofar as some of these authors are forced to speak of a certain originality, originality, specific national character of our art, and in particular of the Boyana frescoes, they still do this as additional reservations. In this way, they essentially underestimate everything that our people and artists have brought to the common treasury of the then and later fine art and of the then and later culture in general. No matter how such views are motivated, no matter what evidence is sought in their defense, the fact remains that they essentially mean a denial and underestimation of the creative originality and value of our native art, and in particular the Boyana frescoes. From the content of almost all the reports, as well as from the film that we will see, we will have the opportunity to convince ourselves that such a view is incorrect and cannot be accepted as a guiding methodological principle in our further historical and specifically aesthetic research and assessments of our native artistic heritage, and in particular the Boyana frescoes.

Having become acquainted with the article by Ya. E. Elsberg "Scholastic Concepts", published as a discussion in issue 1 of the journal "Questions of Philosophy" of the current year, the reader cannot help but ask: what, exactly, did the author want to prove with this article? What general epistemological and special aesthetic position does the author of the article take? The article is directed against the "scholastic concepts" of L. N. Stolovich in his new book "Aesthetics in Reality and in Art" (Gospolitizdat, 1959). It goes without saying that there is nothing unacceptable or incorrect in the fact that one Soviet author discusses with another author such an extremely important general epistemological and special aesthetic question. However, from what positions does Ya. E. Elsberg lead this discussion? From what positions does he criticize the "scholastic concepts" of his opponents, in this case L. N. Stolovich? At the very beginning of the article, Ya. E. Elsberg himself gives a fairly clear answer to these questions. Criticizing L. N. Stolovich's book, Elsberg points out first and foremost that L. N. Stolovich transforms aesthetic categories (beautiful, sublime, disgusting, tragic, comic, etc.) into "elements" of reality itself. Below, Ya. E. Elsberg writes: "Of course, it is good that L. N. Stolovich seeks the source (my interpretation - T. P.) of the aesthetic in objective reality, but what is bad is that he mechanically transfers the categories of aesthetics into reality, identifying these categories with the properties of the latter." And even further down, allegedly referring to Chernyshevsky, the author again states: "Yes, the tragic, the comic, the beautiful are contained in life itself, and in it are the roots (my exp. - T. P.) of the corresponding phenomena of art and of aesthetic categories. But to reduce life to them means to pay a tribute to scholastic systematics" ("Questions of Philosophy", No. 1, 1961, pp. 114, 115, etc., my exp. - T. P.).