Книжка-6

1966 Booklet 6 Contents

The great humanist artists always stand close to the progressive ideas of their era. In our time, many of them reach socialism. And they reach it on their own path, through the internal logic of their development; the humanistic power of their talent brings them to the achievement of revolutionary justice. Emilian Stanev appeared in the 1930s. In all his works from those years there is a reflection on the fate of man. In them one can see not only the animalist artist - the subtle connoisseur and painter of nature and animals. These works tell us about the inequality between people, about the wolfish laws of bourgeois society. They are imbued with a deep sadness for the beautiful in man. But the social views of that time and the humanism of the writer did not allow him to see the real perspective of historical development, he could only express his abstract dream of a better order of the world. Later, Stanev began to see in the revolutionary changes in his country those real conditions that create an opportunity for true emancipation of the human personality. The writer was in a dispute - not a speculative-abstract, but a deeply creative one - with various modernist concepts that isolate man from society. The ideological and artistic evolution that took place in him tangibly and concretely gives answers to the great problems of the century - about the true stimuli of artistic progress, about humanism. The gradual discovery of the new world, the developing revolutionary worldview of Stanev significantly moved his artistic horizons, he saw in the revolution the realization of higher humanistic ideals.

In the first serious article for "Selected Essays and Stories" Dr. Krastev (V. Mirolyubov), after almost completely denying Stamatov as an artist, emphasizes: "The satirical attitude to life is his element. He owes his narrow horizons to it." ("Young and Old" - p. 149). Since then, almost all notable Bulgarian critics have written about Stamatov. And they have always determined his place among the satirists. The literary critic Simeon Sultanov included his vivid and carefully crafted portrait of the writer in a book entitled "Satirists." And this is correct. Stamatov is undoubtedly a satirist. One of the most vividly expressed satirists in our literature. The main pathos in the work of this so original and lonely artist is the angry scourging of the vices that swarm in the human soul, and the angry tearing of the masks behind which these vices like to hide. Stamatov's literary work is filled with greedy, unscrupulous, lustful men and prostitutes who are ostensibly disguised behind the holiest bourgeois virtues. Let us recall all these Lili, Lina, Lida, Shurochka, the Countess, etc. Don't they smell "of taverns and men"? For the writer, "Man is the worst animal because he is smart. More predatory than a wolf, more cunning than a fox, more nasty than a hyena." He views the bourgeois reality in which he is forced to live with vigilant hatred, always ready to erupt in satire. And he lives in the most vulgar period of the bourgeoisie, its apparent flourishing and triumph, when the ideals of the Revival have been forgotten and when the vulgar optimism of "the worm in the cheese" has not yet evolved into the tragic optimism of "the mouse in the trap in front of the cheese from the bait."

Russian literature has captivated the masses with such great dramas that the case of the hero of the novel "The Double" seems to them quite insignificant. But despite this, for more than a hundred years now, the great controversy surrounding this novel and the nightmarish incident with the titular councilor Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, which occurred on the Fontanka embankment in the capital city of Petersburg, in November, in rain and snow, late at night... Leaning on the railings that had been erected along the Fontanka, Yakov Petrovich was experiencing perhaps the most terrible moments of his life. Having just been thrown out of the house of the state councilor Berendeyev, he was ready to disappear altogether, to collapse into the ground, to cease to exist, to turn into dust... But none of this happened, but an extraordinary and puzzling incident occurred: the titular councilor met his double on the banks of the murky and even black Fontanka River.

Liliev appeared in our literature at the beginning of the century, almost simultaneously with Debelyanov. At that time, Yavorov was experiencing a tragic collapse of his youthful ideals. His anxious, restless spirit was wandering in the nightmarish abysses of disbelief. He had become very susceptible to the pessimistic worldview of the symbolist aesthetic. Spontaneously, by a necessary inner command, the great poet paved the way for a belated literary fashion, which the poets of the then young generation - Nikolay Liliev, Dimcho Debelyanov, Lyudmil Stoyanov, Theodore Trayanov, Geo Milev, Hristo Yassenov and others - got carried away. In his homeland - France, this school took shape in the 1980s. It is well known that symbolism is based on the most extreme subjectivism, the hopeless philosophy of a tired, already worn-out psyche. It would be, however, a gross vulgarization to consider that the representatives of symbolism are conscious ideologists of the bourgeoisie and supporters of its order. For the most part they are people with high spiritual impulses, horrified and disgusted by the vulgarity and predatoryness surrounding them, who seek salvation in the world of chimeras, of self-absorption. Symbolism, however decadent in its essence, is a negation of guildsmanship, but a negation that is passive and harmless to the dominant system.

"If They Could Speak" perhaps more directly than any other of Yovkov's works confronts the reader with a peculiarity, mentioned several times recently as the "objectivity" of the depiction, of the verbal drawing. In fact, this so-called by us objectivity represents one of the aspects of the question of the structure and functions of the verbal image in Yovkov. The resolution that he gives it is as important as it is characteristically Yovkovian. And an analysis that has affected in one way or another the structure and composition of the work as a whole (the "macro-image") cannot fail to focus on the structure of the "micro-image" - of the individual linguistic image and its function in the whole. These are questions of the verbal fabric of the artistic work, taken from their specifically stylistic side. While the composition and the general structure of Yovkov's story undergoes a relatively more complex development, Yovkov's verbal pattern develops, so to speak, in an ascending line: this is the progressive unfolding of the same pictorial tendency from "Ovcharova's Complaint" to "If They Could Talk". The path is long - from 1910 to 1936 - but straight; the difference is enormous, but natural and inevitable.

The name of Nikola Vassilev Rakitin is one of the purest and most humane names in Bulgarian poetry. His poems have not lost their original freshness even today, they breathe in the unadulterated aroma of the Bulgarian land and nature, they exude warm love and sympathy for the people, for their work and their dreams for a better life. They are permeated with a sincere, healthy attachment to the poet's native land and village, which he once left, but did not erase from his heart. Rakitin's songs are simple and heartfelt, cheerful and optimistic, but at the same time hiding a kind of quiet sadness and resignation. "Amidst so much sorrow in the world, I wanted to bring a little serenity and joy with my poems," the poet wrote. And he fulfilled this secret wish of his, leaving Bulgarian poetry songs in which his modesty and kindness, humanity and simplicity, the charm of a sincere and dedicated person and poet are preserved.

When it comes to Alexander Balabanov, the first thing that comes to mind is the celebration of the Czech writer and diplomat František Kubka - the last of the series of celebrations that the Union of Bulgarian Writers organized in the spring of 1946 in the salons of the Bulgarian-Soviet Society. Of course, I knew Balabanov for a long time before that. I first remember one of his stories on ancient Greek literature from the idyllic times of my student days in Pazardzhik. His fame as an eccentric and absent-minded person was already spreading and the audience had filled the "Videlina" community center, warned by the rumor that they would hear an amusing professor. I have forgotten the details, but I well remember the joyful excitement of the listeners from that strange combination of the grotesque and the serious, which was a basic feature of his entire personality. What we learned from this story - I don't know, but one thing was indisputable: it turned out that ancient Greek literature is not as uninteresting and distant from us as some textbooks presented it to us. A few years later, already as a student in Sofia, I had the opportunity to meet Balabanov almost every day. I still see him anxious and perpetually in a hurry, moving along Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard with a bag in his hand, a carelessly placed soft hat on his head, under which his curly, uncombed hair peeked out, surrounded by students and acquaintances, talking excitedly or arguing with some imaginary opponent. I even had the opportunity to stop in front of the University and watch with defiant curiosity whether he took off his galoshes before getting on the tram, as the legend created around him claimed. And after September 9th, I don't know exactly when or how, we became close, and since we lived in the same neighborhood, we would walk the distance from the then club of cultural figures to the Doctor's Garden almost every evening. And despite all this, when it comes to him, I first remember that celebration on Mizia Street, which I mentioned.

The post-war twenty years are a period in which Bulgarian literature was received with great interest. It would be wrong, however, to claim that in Slovakia twenty years ago Bulgarian literature was unknown or very little was known about it. Slovak literature was to a large extent prepared for this new period thanks to the tradition created by Šafárik and Kolar, and in more recent times expanded and revived by Vajansky and Zaché - that tireless apostle who became at the end of the last and the beginning of the present century the living link between the two literatures, prepared thanks to the translations of Bulgarian revolutionary poetry made by Pavol Khorov during the Second World War and thanks to the activities of Bulgarian students in Bratislava and their participation in the Slovak People's Uprising. The tradition of lively interest in Bulgarian literature - a tradition that originated with Vayanski (as the author of the book "Sofia-Pleven") and with Zakhey as a translator of works by Ivan Vazov - did not die down during the "dead" time between the two world wars, although in things like the translation fragments of the poet Vladimir Roy and in the translation of "Kharitinina's Sin" by Anna Kamenova, made by Yesenska and published in 1938.

And in terms of posthumous recognition, the literary critic is worse than the writer. Never particularly strong, and without the "brand" of authority - quite thin, the thread with the public breaks. New ideas appear, new assessments, new luminaries. And the work in which the most precious of the personality is realized will still be disputed, and the grains of truth obtained with no less work and talent will still pass through sieves and magnifying glasses. Descendants are not indulgent, history is rarely generous. And if he still has to show generosity, and if he still has to reach into the stingy reserve of mercy and benevolence, then here too the writer will be preferred as an infant child of nature, like a bird of God. The critic, the literary critic is always of age and is responsible for his actions according to the harshest paragraphs of aesthetic legislation. This is what obliges us to carefully examine the work of every talented critic with all the responsibility of his difficult profession, with all the seriousness of our immediate tasks. And when this critic is of the rank of V. V. Ermilov, lessons are also necessary. Not only because his work, interrupted by premature death, will not reach the heights to which he had aspired. Not only because the end requires a reckoning, and the scientific contribution - recognition. Rather, the sad occasion unties a knot of thoughts and experiences. Not every completed creative work is able to give rise to them. And this, it seems to me, is the best attestation for both the living and the dead. In the thirties, when the Komsomol writer stood at a combat post in the Soviet dailies, the artistic criterion was imposed as the main requirement of socialist literature. Works appeared that imposed them on society. But in theoretical thought, the inertia of sociological formulas, of leftist dogma, of edifying teachings continued.

"Contemporary Literary Issues" is the new book by Stoyan Karolev. A new theoretical and critical book in our literature is not a frequent occurrence to go unnoticed. Stoyan Karolev is one of the most mature, insightful and sincere representatives of the middle generation of Marxist literary theorists and critics. He possesses a rare talent: to respond to the most acute contemporary problems, to have a clear position and at the same time to be devoid of malicious pickiness and narrow-mindedness. This is a good and moral critical talent with great erudition and true principle. The arrangement of artists or scientists by age has always seemed unconvincing to me. The characterization of "young artist" or "young critic" has often included not only benevolence, but also condescending neglect - even the "young" are already approaching "the field of life". Referring to advanced age does not give us much either. Past merits and accumulated experience are worthy of respect. However, these values ​​are often overshadowed by the selfishness of age, by conservatism, by the fear of the new. And this has more than once led to "subjective honesty, objective reaction" (at best), to falling behind the needs of the era. Both youth and maturity are equivalent, as long as they can be measured by bold talent and high value productivity. Old Goethe had much younger talent than a number of beardless Eckermanns. Proof is the second part of "Faust". Every true talent is young, since every work presupposes the original creation of unconventional, fundamentally new values, for which there is no preliminary algorithm. This general rule is powerful both over the artist and over criticism.

Atanas Natev's book "Contemporary Western Drama" appears after a number of publications by the same author on the theory of art and some problems of the new Bulgarian drama. This circumstance provides an opportunity in advance for a combination of the general aesthetic aspects of the issues with the more specific and current focus of the analysis. And I must emphasize that this feature is clearly evident in Atanas Natev's new book. Here the author has managed to examine the various works and authors with careful insight into the characteristic features, the main trends and directions of development. In relation to contemporary Western drama, the author was faced with a specific difficulty: the fact that the matter he examines is insufficiently studied in our country and is only partially known to the wider public, and even to specialists. This also defines a new task for Natev: let's call it cultural and educational, when he is obliged, along with the analysis, to follow in quite detail the content of the individual plays, retell individual episodes, actions, etc. At a different level of knowledge of this material, such deviations would seem superfluous and unnecessary additions to the aesthetics of a new phenomenon in contemporary dramaturgy. But the author was aware that he was obliged to pave the way himself, to be to a certain extent a popularizer of insufficiently known phenomena.

In recent months, our Botev studies have been enriched with another valuable contribution - the book by St. Tarinska "The Prose of Hristo Botev". Not large in volume, this new book about the great son of our people is the result of long-term, systematic, in-depth research work. Its subject is the relatively little-studied prose of Botev - his articles, essays and feuilletons. The author has collected a large amount of historical and literary material and has built a study that is distinguished by its overall harmonious composition, internal logic and consistency, in-depth penetration and analysis. With the scientific precision, accuracy and analytical skills of a talented literary historian, Tarinska collects observations and facts, traces the path of the publicist and feuilletonist, outlines the atmosphere of the time more and more closely, and delve deeper and deeper into the peculiarities and uniqueness of the literary process. Interesting precisely from a literary-historical point of view is the versatile, very specific analysis that she makes of the works under consideration - articles, essays and feuilletons. The method of fragmentation, of detailed literary-historical analysis is applied particularly consistently in the most extensive chapter of the study - "Master of the Feuilleton". The author searches for the sources used in writing each feuilleton, which served as material and as an occasion for the feuilletonist. Studying with literary-historical depth the "prehistory" of the work, i.e. the occasion for its emergence, the sources, the prototypes, Tarinska arrives at interesting observations, imperceptibly and slightly entering its atmosphere. The author argues with Al. Burmov about the time in which the feuilleton "The Wardrobe" was written, without getting carried away by the accumulation of facts for its own sake, in historicism for its own sake. "Al. Burmov's arguments at first glance are completely plausible and convincing, she writes, but if we carefully follow the content of the work and turn to the actual facts that lie at its foundation, we will see that his statement is false. We will dwell on this issue in more detail not only to specify the time of the creation of the feuilleton, but because this is largely a question of the principles on which Botev builds the feuilleton work." (p. 106). 1 Stefana Tarinska, The Prose of Hristo Botev", ed. Nauka i izkustvo, S., 1966. Tarinska is constantly searching for "principles", the main problems. The specific analysis of "The Closet" leads to principled conclusions and generalizations about the birth and development of the feuilleton theme, about Botev's ability to remain faithful to the actual fact and at the same time provide himself with sufficient distance to organize his material in such a way that the great social theme resonates. Through the analysis, the answer to the question is reached - how does the feuilletonist embed the actual fact in the general fabric of the work? For Botev, "the concrete-topical is not an illustration of the idea, but an expression of the idea. That is why he needs it in its unity between the particular and the general - as it manifests itself in reality itself." When examining the feuilleton "That Night I Dreamed..." Tarinska again searches for the principle on which the satirical exposure is built, discovers the intersection of the small and large themes of the feuilleton, the connection of the plot development. And she comes to the summary: "A constant overflow, a constant transition from the small to the large theme of the work. A continuous alternation of the fable-allegorical with the real-believable and all this through unexpected transitions, at the same time smooth, logical" in its illogicality, externally acceptable - on these principles Botev builds the feuilleton story." (p. 120) The analysis of "That Night I Dreamed..." gives the author material to reveal Botev's ability to fabulate, to create with ease and ease a feuilleton plot - interesting and deeply meaningful, saturated with a wide variety of motifs and at the same time monolithic and purposeful", to build the plot development on specific evil daily facts and at the same time project it onto the big, fundamental issues of the time, giving it a clear political focus.