Книжка-1

1966 Book 1 Contents

A short story with this title clearly reflects Emilian Stanev's view of life in nature, enduring features of his attitude to the world. Isn't it the key to the sources of his creative originality? There is nothing fairy-tale about the plot. On a moonless June night, a goldfinch sneaks into the nest of two finches, where the female warms her small, still naked offspring with her body. The bird wakes up and sees "the eyes of the little beast, which phosphoresced like two burning bluish-green abysses, but it continued to lie over the chicks, because a mother's love is stronger than death." Maybe this is a story about the power of a mother's love? No, only this restrained passage is dedicated to it. The author also describes the drama that unfolded, the death of the bird and its chicks with restraint: "Suddenly the golden eagle rushed forward, grabbed the nest in its paws, tore it off and fell with it onto a branch. There it sank its thin, needle-like teeth into the finch, which squealed. Then the little beast ate the bird and the naked chicks slowly, without rushing, as cats eat... Fed and already lazy, the golden eagle crawls into the hollow of the beech tree, where it falls asleep. "The beech leaves trembled soothingly, as if distant waters were rustling." Nothing unusual has happened, the June night is still as calm and beautiful, illuminated by the pale light of the stars. Even more beautiful is the morning when the forest awakens - endless and vast", the horizon is ablaze "with the advancing sunrise" and on the top of the huge beech, on its silvery bark, "fiery and orange spots" play. Its silky bosoms sway, in which the finch and her young perish at night. "Hirringly absorbing the sun's rays, the thousands of silky soft leaves trembled and rustled from top to bottom, as if the beech was laughing with joyful shivers..."

In 1942, the world-famous writer Stefan Zweig committed suicide in Brazil at the age of sixty-one. The reasons for this, as is often the case with the suicides of true artists, were of a spiritual nature. The writer outlined them in his deathbed confession. Here they are: "To begin my life again at the age of sixty - this requires special strength. And mine have been exhausted during the long years of homeless wanderings. That is why I think it is best to leave life in due time and with dignity, in which the supreme good for me was personal freedom and intellectual work that gave me immense joy. I congratulate all my friends. It is possible that they will see the dawn after this long night. I, the most impatient, am leaving earlier than them. Amidst the fanfare of military victories, amidst the bristled human hatred, this death of the great writer seemed to pass unnoticed. But it echoed painfully in the hearts of many people scattered on both sides of the trenches. It reminded them of the past gentle joys of the spirit, of the enthusiastic meetings with bright human characters, of the undying beauty of the human word. In the atmosphere of mass murders, which seems to oppress and dull sensitivity, sadness according to the beloved writer, it was too personal, too intimate and tender.

If we look for the reason for the new phenomena in contemporary fiction - the expansion of the ideological and thematic circle of the reflected phenomena, the changes in the problematic, the new illumination of the image of the contemporary, the intensified process of artistic searches - we will inevitably come to changes in the aesthetic positions of the contemporary writer, to his expanded artistic and sociological vision. It is an indisputable truth that the aesthetic attitude is historically concrete and objectively conditioned by the general level of development of social existence and consciousness. The generalized experience of the writer of recent years naturally pushes him towards a new self-consciousness, towards new conclusions about the relationship of man to nature and society, towards new assessments of reality. From the positions of an expanded idea of ​​the beautiful, which included the experience of the last decade, from the positions of an aesthetic ideal liberated from dogmatic thinking, he strives to give a broader idea of ​​​​modern man, of the beautiful in man and his life.

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.

In the person of La Rochefoucauld we must see not only the great writer, who showed in his maxims and maxims a subtle observation and original wit, but also the proud worldly man, whose motto is "honor and glory" and whose activity is mainly in military enterprises and dangerous conspiracies. The writer here appears relatively late, only when all hope for success in the political field is lost and when severe disappointments and physical infirmities force the strong-willed man to withdraw into a quiet distance from the turbulent public life. Very indicative of the true ambition of La Rochefoucauld is the fact that he decided to print his famous collection of Reflections from 1665 when he had reached the age of 52 and that the reason for this was the appearance - without the knowledge and consent of the author - of a "bad copy" of his manuscript, capable of giving a distorted opinion of the original. He did not aspire to the laurels of a writer in the least, although he was easily able to write poems and tried with success to compose memoirs. He sought his true glory in exploits with the sword: he always considered the art of war "nobler and more glorious" than the art of speech. In order to understand not only this preference, but also the spiritual face of Laroche Foucault in general, it is necessary to cast a cursory glance at the life destiny of the man who occupied such a prominent place in the literary history of the French 17th century.

It was one morning in the first days of September, we had breakfasted at one of the coastal hotels of Montreux, where we had happened to be at night, and after taking a short walk through the park to enjoy the Swiss nature, we set off again. We had a long journey to Paris ahead of us, but at the same time we did not want to miss a happy opportunity - to visit the famous Chillon Castle, which we had passed the night before. We had no time to waste, so we had to choose quickly. And, of course, we chose what could turn out to be unique. So instead of heading for Lausanne, as prudence dictated, we turned in the opposite direction and headed for Chillon. And suddenly we were once again immersed in the Swiss landscape: on the right the calm azure expanse of Leman, on the left the foothills of the Swiss Alps, and in the far southeast the feminine cones of the Danne-du-Midi, slightly gilded by the September sun. I looked at this picture, full of picturesque grandeur, and imperceptibly the visible began to give way to an excitement that the night's sleep had interrupted. As at the first meeting with the snow-capped mountains, I felt myself once again in the spiritual and emotional atmosphere of one of my poets, who had once passed through here and had populated the Alpine landscape with the shadows of his imagination. But instead of the gloomy ghosts of the previous evening, now, under the influence of the morning clarity, I had involuntarily sought in it that which foreshadowed the end of a nightmarish night. And I had found it in these two verses that unexpectedly floated into my mind:

From December 3 to 5 of this year, the 15th Congress of Polish Writers met in Krakow. One of the central issues in the congress's discussions was the issue of creating new literary magazines. A number of speakers emphasized that the insufficient number of magazines was not conducive to the creation of serious literary criticism and journalism, but led to a superficial form of feuilleton criticism. Ideological and artistic initiative was largely stifled, and the literary assessments given by only one central literary organ were inevitably one-sided. The need to publish a magazine dedicated to foreign literature, like the Soviet "Foreign Literature", was emphasized. A group of young writers spoke in favor of publishing a magazine that would print only debut works. However, the first issue raised was the issue of publishing another central literary magazine in Warsaw, which would reflect the creative pursuits of writers from the capital.

The string of great names in contemporary German literature has thinned out. In the last decade, death has cut short the lives and creative paths of Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Alfred Döblin, Johannes Becher, Leon Feuchtwanger, Hans Heni Jahn, Hermann Hesse. It is true that there are still several significant companions of these writers among us (such as Arnold Zweig and Anna Zegers), but the question arises: have writers grown up in Germany in the meantime, from whose talent we could expect something representative in fiction in the future. In this connection, the name of Manfred Bühler, a young fiction writer and radio dramatist, one of the few authors in the GDR who attracts attention in the Federal Republic and the Western world, is sometimes mentioned - among many others. Of course, success coexists above all with clever organization, but Bühler, who is only 31 years old, makes demands on his readers and clearly has a gift. After studying German studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin and being a lecturer for a short time, he set out to travel the world. In the late 1950s, he visited Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria; he closely followed Bulgarian literature (e.g., the poems and epigrams of Radoi Ralin, Ivaylo Petrov's novel "Dead Excitement"). In 1960, as a worker on a fishing boat, he undertook a trip to Canada and Newfoundland, and in 1965 he was also in London. It is known how much travel contributes to the development of a person, what a school it is, because it brings us new knowledge with ease or being full of dangers. Through travel, a person overcomes his one-sidedness, prejudices, and obstacles in his development and achieves, given sufficient prerequisites, a higher level.

Bulgarian historiography has shown an understandable interest in the friendship of Hristo Botev with Russian revolutionary-democrats, emigrants to Romania in the 1970s. Their relations were on a personal and political basis, and their clarification would clarify some moments of the biography and ideology of Hristo Botev, immediately before the formation and passage of his detachment to Bulgaria. Some of the names of Botev's "Russian friends" are known: Bonifacio Florescu, Nikolai Petrovich Zubcu-Codryanu, Nikolai Konstantinovich Sudzilovski, Nikolai Filipovich Meledin, Alexander Shapchenko, Costica Dobrudzhanu-Gerya, Zamfir Arbore-Rali, Dr. N. Lucicki, Henryk Dembitski, etc. The closest to Botev were the first three: B. Florescu, whose real name was Hertrat, N. Codreanu, known in journalism by his pseudonym Dragos, and N. Sudzilovski, better known under the name of Doctor Roussell. From them we present several letters that are directly or indirectly related to Botev and his group. The originals or photocopies of them are in the Romanian Academy, and are being published in Bulgarian for the first time. The letters cover one of the relatively little-known periods of Botev's life, namely from the autumn of 1875 until his departure from Bucharest for "Radecki". The relations between Botev and the emigre revolutionary democrats are of a nature to complement and clarify the ideology of our revolutionary and poet, his moving away from utopian socialism and his approach to Marxism and scientific socialism, which occurs with their joint in-depth study of "Capital" by Karl Marx and the socialist literature that began to penetrate Romania, which is also reflected in the contemporary Romanian progressive periodical press.

A warm friendship has connected Georgi Raichev and Nikolay Liliev since 1908. Then the twenty-six-year-old Raichev left the dusty provincial offices forever and arrived in Sofia with the foolish thought of becoming a "great writer". But the capital did not welcome him with open arms, but with complete indifference and unemployment. With seventy-four leva in his pocket, a large suitcase full of manuscripts and a head clouded by the vague ideas of modernism, he wandered helplessly through the cold city, quickly running out of money and starving for several months. The only people he knew and cared about him were the two poets from Stara Zagora, Nikolay Liliev and Dimitar Podvarzachov. They diligently looked for work for him and finally managed to appoint him as a clerk at 111 Sofia Boys' High School "Gladstone", where Liliev was a teacher in the commercial department and Podvarzachov was a secretary. Raichev deeply valued their friendship until the end of his life. From the remote province, he suddenly found himself in the very whirlpool of cultural life in our country, among the elite of our then spiritual intelligentsia.

Bulgarian literary criticism during the Revival attracted the least researchers of our classical heritage. Indeed, there are special studies on Karavelov and Botev, on Drumev and Nesho Bonchev. On various occasions, some literary historians and theorists have touched upon the issues of Revival aesthetic thought. However, the need for a comprehensive study has long been felt, which would enrich the not-so-complete and accurate ideas about literary criticism during the Revival, point out new names and facts, and seek the principles that determine the attitude of the Revival writer to literary phenomena. Such a work, of course, requires not only persistent and continuous work - a study of the periodical press, archival funds, and individual editions. Basically, one must also know Russian and Western European aesthetic thought of this period in order to be able to trace the nature of the influences, to distinguish the original from ordinary imitation. It is necessary to study both the original and translated literature, to see whether each given assessment meets an objective criterion.

The new book by Lyubomir Tenev is anything but a boring, preoccupied and dry conversation about the art of theatre. Here too, the critic reveals his strongest 1 Macedonia, year IV, issue 2, 1869. 2 Macedonia, year IV, issue 10, 1869, 3 Macedonia, year IV, issue 30, 1870. strengths - the ability to analyze and motivate precisely theatrical phenomena, to subtly feel art. The latter quality gives L. Tenev an incomparable advantage - to perceive the shades of the artistic fact, to penetrate its transparent and delicate matter. In the approach of the critic 167 there is rigor, consistency, despite the apparent ease of language. Here I am not talking so much about pedantic conscientiousness, but about an inner predisposition to sharply and precisely reveal the phenomena, to their methodical unraveling. The imagination in this case is directed more towards the internal laws of the spectacle, the image, the play, and not so much towards random and playful ideas.

It is difficult to read a book in which quotations occupy a significant part of the content. However, these are not quotations that a specialist, contrary to the practice established in our country, should avoid due to their general notoriety. Ivan Tsvetkov quotes an extraordinary number of times, but he quotes things that are known to a limited number of literary scholars. Or they are new even to them, something that does not surprise anyone, since the author is undoubtedly the best expert on the material related to the topic "Gorky and Bulgarian Literature". Of course, there can always be people who will underestimate this positive quality of the author's erudition with the objection that such "collection" can be carried out by a moderately qualified writer or simply by a dilettante. In general, this may be the case, but in this case it is not at all the case. For the simple reason that when it comes to Gorky, dilettante prefer a completely different type of activity, least of all research. In this way, the deep and comprehensive connections of the great writer with our Literature for half a century and more and with our cultural and social life in general are at best only declared and very little is shown through the traces that the literary process has left us. That is why Ivan Tsvetkov's book does not at all fill a void, "as the reviewers like to express themselves. On the contrary, it energetically pushes aside the general newspaper articles and other similar materials that have occupied an excessively large territory, in which Gorky's name is associated only with the most superficial and rhetorical recognition of his importance for us and with five or six facts that are remembered and known only because they are constantly repeated to us. Finally, what should Ivan Tsvetkov start with, except for collecting the material buried by our inattention?

It is a glorious Gorky tradition to call on artists of the word to collective work: to frank conversations and discussions, to extensive discussions of the most pressing problems of our time, to various ways of creatively stimulating literature, art and culture. For half a century, these traditions have been actively developed to a new stage by modern creative unions, institutes, editorial offices and cultural organizations of Soviet writers, artists, scientists and cultural figures. A new vivid document of these living traditions and the emphasized desire for joint initiatives is the booklet 12 - 1965 of "Literary Issues", the organ of the Union of Writers of the USSR and the Institute of World Literature "A. M. Gorky" at the Academy of Sciences of the CCCP. The editorial board's initiative to dedicate an entire separate issue of the journal to the literatures of the socialist countries in Europe is not only commendable and timely, but also very symptomatic of the mature contemporary conditions under which European writers from the socialist countries must develop their creative efforts.

In recent years, significant progress has been noted in the development of literary studies in our country. There has been a tendency to create generalizing works in which problems of Bulgarian literature of national importance are examined and developed (History of Bulgarian Literature, Panorama of Bulgarian Literature, Development of Bulgarian Literary Criticism, separate periods of our old literature, etc.). Monographic studies on individual writers and literary trends have significantly increased. The attention of literary scholars is directed to essential problematic issues of artistry and style, the image and structure of the work of art, and the problems of genres. Along with this, there is an enrichment and expansion of the specific subject matter of scientific research, the theoretical base is expanding, and a broad exchange of opinions is developing on the basis of Marxist-Leninist methodology. On the other hand, there is a noticeable updating of literary problems in view of the requirements of our modernity.