Emil Petrov

So many books have piled up your table - a whole library is before you! These books contain the fifteen-year creative work of poets from several generations. Never in the past has our poetry been so torrential, never in the past has it known that so many poetic works by so many authors have been published in a period of 15 years. And how nice it is, leafing through the pages of these books in the silence of the night, to see how in many of them the gold of a new poetry shines, born, grown and developing inseparably from the new, socialist life of our country, how nice it is to feel the living pulse of this poetry in the works that successfully withstand the severe test of time!

One of the most characteristic phenomena in our literary development after September 9, 1944, is the continuous influx of young, fresh creative forces into the ranks of our poetry. It can certainly be said that never before has our poetry been enriched so intensively and on such a broad front with young, reliable creative cadres. The removal of artificial barriers between literature and the people is one of the great conquests of our cultural revolution. As is known, this is a two-sided dialectical process, which is characterized by the wide penetration of literature among the people, among the many-million readership and by the raising of the spiritual level, the aesthetic education of this reader, by the cultivation and manifestation of his creative abilities. "Art belongs to the people," says Lenin, "it must penetrate with its deepest roots into the bosom of the broad masses of the people. It must be understandable to these masses and beloved by them. It must unite the feeling, thought and will of these masses, elevate them. It must awaken artists in them and develop them."

Poetry is the leading principle in the artistic culture of our people. And this is undoubtedly one of the main features of our national character. The poetic temperament of the Bulgarian people has manifested itself in all spheres of life. However, with the greatest and most concentrated force, it has manifested itself in the field of poetic literary creation. In the mountain range of our literature, the most numerous and highest peaks belong to poetry. And if a few years ago the conquests of our artistic prose exceeded the conquests of poetry, then recently we have again witnessed the undeniable rise of poetic creativity. A new wave of creative successes has raised its crest in our poetry - a whole series of poets from different generations have created books that have found a strong and spontaneous response in the hearts of the widest circle of readers. These books draw the line of a very interesting and characteristic phenomenon of our poetry today, into which we are obliged to look, to explain its inner meaning, to realize the lessons hidden in it. The creative successes of our poetry, which are in question, were born not because of the application of revisionist recipes for "refreshing" artistic creativity, not because of the refusal or deviation of poets from the fundamental principles of our contemporary literature. These successes, in their ideological and artistic essence, mean the strengthening and further development of socialist realism in our poetry, the unfolding of its possibilities, and on the other hand - overcoming, precisely on this solid foundation, some dogmatic prejudices and schematic stratifications in views and creative practice. In other words, in recent years our poetry has been making serious and effective efforts to participate in its own specific way and in its own irreplaceable way even more actively in the communist education and re-education of the people, by mastering in a versatile and diverse way the truth of life, the truth of real experiences, of the living, rich and complex spiritual experience of our contemporaries. With this, it becomes more necessary to readers, more deserving of their trust and appreciation, more sought after and respected by them.