Книжка-3

1966 Book 3 Contents

In the centuries-old historical destiny of our people, there are eras rich in events and personalities that most fully reveal our national essence, synthesize the most intimate in the efforts of the Bulgarian for national affirmation, social-moral and cultural empowerment. That is why, like a beacon, they have attracted, retained and will direct the gaze of scientists and artists, historians and sociologists, philosophers and psychologists. Such a comprehensive and incredibly intense era undoubtedly represents the era of national liberation struggles, the epilogue of which was the April Uprising of 1876. For nine decades now, this event, magnificent in its conception and organization, in its ideological and emotional saturation, in its social and moral impulses, has been emitting an irresistible radiance. Crowned with the halo of immortality, it pushes us to reflect, confronts us with ever new problems. Prepared for decades with dedication and boundless sacrifice, conceived and guided by bright minds and ardent hearts, it came to show the world the greatness and tragedy of the Bulgarian tribe, to evoke the admiration of honest people, to disturb the public conscience, to throw confusion into the minds of European statesmen and diplomats. And most importantly - to strengthen the belief that "we are not forever submissive to them", that the land - soaked in blood for centuries and strewn with bones - will no longer tolerate a foreign enslaver, it has nurtured the most cherished dream - freedom and justice of the people.

Isn't it too inappropriate to open this question again? Haven't we been forced to "originality" for years, which has left us behind in a number of areas of science and life? A number of people have prejudices about the topic itself. But anyone who has followed literary life in recent years will not deny that it is becoming necessary, often dominating the press, criticism, and conversations. These conversations have even acquired the specific hue of self-disclosure and self-knowledge, so complacency and skepticism become inappropriate. This is no longer a dialogue, as it is now fashionable to say, but a kind of public monologism, since we are touching on very intimate matters. Among the many reasons for the maturation of these problems in our literary development in recent years, I will point out the following: The tendencies of socialist development of constant rapprochement of the peoples in the USSR and the gradual erasure of national differences are formulated in the Program of the CPSU. Development in this direction is a complex and lengthy process. Nations, as Marxism teaches, are permanent historical communities, subject to constant change. Their true rapprochement, as well as the elimination of differences between them, must go through a comprehensive socialist flowering of national cultures, through the disclosure of their entire vital and creative potential. ..... The elimination of national differences - says the Program of the CPSU - is a significantly longer process than the elimination of class boundaries... The Party does not allow either ignoring or exaggerating national peculiarities." On the subject of the national question, Lenin warned that "an unconditional requirement of Marxist theory in the consideration of any social question is its formulation within certain historical frameworks, and then... taking into account the specific peculiarities that distinguish a given country from others within the limits of a historical epoch."

Twenty years ago, in the summer of 1947, a Swiss publishing house published Thomas Mann's novel "Doctor Faustus." Now, the judgment of that unfortunate, sick Jew, the critic Samuel Lublinsky, was no longer necessary. About fifty years before that, it was he who had made a prediction about "Buddenbrooks," which time had fully confirmed: over the years, the importance of this book would grow and it would be read by many more generations. The author of "Doctor Faustus" was already a well-known writer, entered into the literary classics of the 20th century - he did not need the encouraging words once spoken to the young and unknown author of "Buddenbrooks." But precisely because of this, Thomas Mann's personal and literary responsibility became much greater - the entire literary world would gaze at the novel of the 72-year-old famous writer. Perhaps "Doctor Faustus" would remain his last novel, a summary of a long and rich civic and literary life. There were too many reasons for such attention from the literary world beyond the fame, beyond the literary reputation of the artist. "Doctor Faustus" was neither conceived nor realized as a single novel, as one of many novels. Even before the unequivocal confessions of the writer himself, the literary public sensed that this was a novel about the era in the form of a history of the artist's tormented and sinful life, that it contained many of the author's moods, that this was a frank authorial confession. Then came the confessions. "Doctor Faustus" is the writer's first major creative undertaking, which was clear to him in detail from the very beginning, whose spiritual and physical dimensions he saw in advance not in a "magic crystal", but clearly as in the palm of his hand. And perhaps not so much because the 68-year life and nearly 50-year writing experience bore their fruits - the complete coverage of the creative idea with the creative result - but rather because, as he himself admits, none of his fictional characters (perhaps with the exception of Hanno Buddenbrock) did Thomas Mann love so sincerely, so deeply and so sufferingly as he loved his Doctor Faustus, his Adrian Leverkuhn. He loved him as a person loves himself and those in whom he sees himself. As his fictional biographer Serenus Zeitblom, he surrounded him with his anxious love - from the years of haughty discipleship to the fulfillment of the devil's curse.

And so far we have no book on Tolstoy's aesthetic views. It is a pity. Such a book would help us not only to comprehend the artistic consequences and theoretical positions of the brilliant writer, but also to penetrate more deeply into some essential and complex problems of our contemporary art. However, this topic has long attracted the attention of our science. In the works of V. Asmus, B. Bursov, S. Bychkov, K. Lomunov, L. Opulska, V. Malinkovsky and other researchers, many essential aspects of Tolstoy's aesthetic system have been revealed. But it is so broad and contradictory that from time to time it is necessary to re-check or specify some of its boundaries in order to present the general picture as reliably as possible. Only in this case can one clearly understand what of Tolstoy's aesthetic heritage belongs to the past and what continues to live actively now. The aesthetic views of the great artist are always interesting - interesting because we involuntarily connect these views with his living creative practice and in this way we can visually verify their vitality and depth. Therefore, we should far from consider Tolstoy's aesthetics only as "the self-knowledge of a brilliant artist." Such a view, which sometimes exists in our country, narrows and impoverishes its meaning. Tolstoy's aesthetic views summarize not only his own work, but also the artistic experience of Russian and world literature.

"Your Mother" - Botev's first poetic work not only sets a brilliant beginning to his work. It becomes a kind of concentration of his talent, it discovers the unsuspected possibilities of the individual to express himself. "Your Mother" marks the birth of our greatest poet, the extraordinary vitality and artistic uniqueness of his talent. There is no other example in our literature for such a spontaneous, unexpected birth of talent. Vazov, one of Botev's peers in poetry, long before the creation of "The Pine", a poem that brought him poetic fame, made very pale, insignificant "experiments". Slaveykov had to go the long way of imitative poetry before he found himself, his own poetic theme. Even Chintulov - a poet who stands closer to Botev with the immediate manifestation of his talent, in his first poems is almost completely "different" from the well-known poet of the romantic youth of our Revival - the author of the first rebellious songs.

The literary press of each country widely reflects those issues of a literary, literary-critical, socio-cultural and philosophical-ideological nature that most excite a given society at a given time. In order to grasp the more important of them, without stopping at the one-day issues, we must naturally take a broader view of time. This review traces some of the more important problems that have attracted the attention of Polish critics, writers and the Polish cultural community in recent months and have found their expression in the pages of the Polish literary press. Due to the great diversity and variety of the issues, we will limit ourselves here only to those issues that concern fiction and the novel in particular.

Dimcho Debelyanov and Nikolay Liliev met in the summer of 1907 in the village of Dolna Banya, Ihtiman region. There, Liliev worked at the Srebarnikovi sawmill - he kept the commercial books. Dimcho Debelyanov - a young man, almost a teenager, who had just graduated from high school, arrived during the holidays to visit his sister Maria Grigorova. He had already read several of Nikolay Mihaylov's printed poems and immediately became friends with him.

Ricarda Huh is the heiress of a great humanist art. A student of Goethe and Keller, brought up in the spirit of the democratic bourgeoisie before 1848, Ricarda Huh continues the classical line in the development of German literature and occupies a place in its history alongside such major figures as Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse. The scope of her curiosity is wide. History and philosophy, along with literature, are areas that attract her to her last day. Her versatile interests make her express herself creatively in a variety of genres: from the critical essay to the historical and philosophical study, from the small lyric poem through the story, the novel and the novel to the multi-volume epic. The unifying link in Ricarda Huh's artistic and critical work is her Renaissance worldview. The collective image in her art is the man who has overcome bourgeois morality and who is burning to fully develop and realize himself. Huh's humanism is always subordinated to the problems of modernity. When she turns her historical novels to heroic past times, she calls upon the present ("The Great War in Germany", "Wallenstein", "The Life of Count Federigo Confalonieri". The Struggle for Rome", etc.). She points out to her contemporaries ideals that will shape the man of the future.

A remarkable work in literary science is the recently published second edition of "Psychology of Literary Creativity" by Academician Mikhail Arnaudov. This work is a scientific and literary study of the psychological foundations of the creative process in writers and of its precise, albeit difficult to perceive determinism. Academician M. Arnaudov has mastered a methodology that has enabled him to make a realistic interpretation of the creative process. He applies the juxtaposition of opposing and contradictory poetic experiences and opinions, which he arranges in such a way as to highlight the objective truth about the creative process. In "Psychology of Literary Creativity" a huge amount of material from the poetic wealth of the classics of the 18th and 19th centuries is used, and mainly those confessions of poets are given that lead to the treasures of their creative thoughts and impulses. On a number of issues of literary psychology the author has discovered an opportunity for further research, indicating the path that should be followed. He usually does not lead discussions with the creators, but acts as a conductor of discussions held between them. In this way he ensures the integrity of the facts and the originality of their evidentiary force. Acad. M. Arnaudov does not strive for formulations. For him, individual peculiarities are important, which also reveal common characteristics, and at the same time lead to the laws of psychic experiences. The work is developed in a very broad plan of problems. The world's artistic and psychological experience is used, and in places parallels are made between different arts. As prerequisites for the psychology of creativity, the problems of genius, race and humanity, about the influence of heredity, environment and culture, about Mikhail Arnaudov. Psychology of literary creativity. 1965. 120 degeneration and neuroses. On these issues, the author has come to materialist conclusions. Particularly valuable is his work with arguments and evidence against all mysticism, demonism, racism and neurosis, the supporters of which most often seek evidence precisely in the work of poets, as an exceptionally wonderful area in which, they claim, the laws of ordinary mental life are invalid. The author proves to us just the opposite: creativity is health, work, perseverance, diligence, humanity and the struggle with everything painful. "Creativity is clarification and spiritual purification. How could the artist become an interpreter of thoughts and longings in his contemporaries if he does not rise above all internal limitations and above everything chaotic in himself?"

From a book, the various parts of which were written in 1907, 1909 and 1964, one could not expect such unity of style and suggestion. But, however incredible it may be, a Bulgarian who talked with Plekhanov and listened to the speeches of Georgi Kirkov, who was friends with our greatest artists from the beginning of the century and was a guest of the old Revival activist Dragan Tsankov, a man who breathed the air of the same room with Renoir, Monet and Clemenceau, is our contemporary and presents himself with a new book - "Views on Literature and Art and Personal Memories" - articles on literature and painting, journalism and memoirs. It is difficult to speak of any kind of integrity, and yet this book is too homogeneous. It is united by the personality of its author, the unity of its style lies above all in the lack of violence over style, in a lightness that has its roots in the overall manifestation of the creative spirit.

Ivan Meshekov's book, without claiming to present everything worthy of attention in the literary-critical work of this interesting critic of ours, truly fills a gap in our cultural life, "presenting to the attention of wider circles "the name and work of a gifted, but insufficiently known and insufficiently appreciated literary critic, who for many years was unfairly passed over in contemptuous silence" (according to the afterword by B. Delchev).

The history of art knows the resurrection of unknown greats from the tomb of oblivion: Bach, Hölderlin, Stendhal... But it also knows the vanished stars that once shone in the cultural firmament. One of the favorite authors of our childhood is today almost forgotten, abandoned, misunderstood. We can hardly imagine our teenage library without "Ivanhoe", "Quentin Durward" and "The Bride of Lammermoor", but today's teenagers can. It is hard to believe that today's reader prefers a history textbook to the novels of Walter Scott, but it is a fact. And it is completely incomprehensible to the mind how the idol of Belinsky, the favorite of Pushkin and Chernyshevsky, of V. Hugo and Karl Marx has become almost persona non grata for modern literary scholarship. But that is also the case. And, alas, nowadays the fame of W. Scott is spread more by Vincenzo Bellini's "Puritans" and Gaetano Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" than by libraries and printing houses. If by chance his name is mentioned as a classic of the historical novel, then this will be a tribute of respect, a formula, edifying advice. And literary scholarship has its own patterns, permanent positions. So who says that the historical novel is an inferior genre? It was Walter Scott, after all, he raised it to the level of the greatest works of his era. Who does not know the novels of W. Scott? Learn from Scott! More Scott!