Книжка-4

1967 Book 4 Contents

During its turbulent and long life, which temporarily faded away during the wars and ended in the tragic year of 1923, the magazine "Novo Vreme" by Dimitar Blagoev invariably devoted a large space to the problems of art and especially fiction. Blagoev was deeply convinced that fiction is one of the best means for society's self-knowledge, that the influence it can exert on life is enormous. This conviction inspired him to tirelessly care for illuminating in "Novo Vreme" the problems of art and literature from a "socialist point of view", to lead a consistent struggle for realistic and progressive fiction.

Already in the "RLF", during the fourth and fifth anniversaries, Vezhinov contributed stories that are distinguished by their freshness, originality, and the search for his own style. Most of them, in terms of motives and ideological tasks, do not differ from stories with agitational issues on the most ominous political topics. What is special about them, despite the fact that the author is still searching, has not yet found his topic, is the writer's style, his vital observation, which breaks the narrow plot framework. Even in these stories, a writer is visible who, like St. Minkov, struggles with the routine in the artistic form, with the artistic print, with the outdated artistic vision. The tendencies that bring him closer to St. Minkov, are felt in the widespread use of episodic, lightly shaded images, in the author's already emerging ability to create picturesque images with bright distinctive features and their own artistic atmosphere, in the constant smile, in the search for the artistically original, in the ability to build an atmosphere using insignificant but vivid everyday needs.

There are journalistic and popularization articles that argue approximately like this: art is not an end in itself; once created, it is imputed to have a duty to influence public consciousness. These arguments seem very convincing and seem to admit of no doubts or objections. And yet, an unacceptable simplistic tendency is apparent in them. To claim that art is a phenomenon that renders itself meaningless if it proves incapable of aesthetic influence on a certain social collective or part of it is an axiomatic truth (at least for our aesthetics), but to think that the problem of this influence arises only after it has been created and exists as a fact is an unsatisfactory statement that does not take into account its inherent specificity. This problem - whether the individual artist is aware of it clearly enough or not - is immanent to art, it should not be understood as something that is subsequently, completely placed before him as a result of didactic tasks, conjunctural circumstances, etc. No, it is its organic component. For art is an artistic value not in some metaphysical isolation from society, but only in its relation to the aesthetic consciousness of a certain social community (group).

Bulgarian historical folk songs, in the broad sense of the word, encompass, in addition to works directly related to historical events, the heroic and haidush epics. Despite the fact that in Bulgarian science there are already well-known traditions on the issue of the main division of this type of folk songs, namely: heroic, historical and haidush, when considering the poetics of folk poetry, the unification of these three groups is simply necessary in order to show the development of the genre, the epic hero, etc. The task of this article is to examine some aspects of the artistic features of the Bulgarian heroic folk epic, starting with the heroic epic and ending with the partisan songs. First of all, we will try to characterize the epic hero of these songs, who in this long period of time (14th-20th centuries) changed depending on the political, social and economic conditions of Bulgaria.

The most important problem of a historical novel, as well as of any work of art, is its attitude to the present. Every significant historical novel is indicative of the moods, aesthetic principles, tastes and preferences of its time. To discover the modern in history, to draw the reader's attention to one or another of its sides, to one or another aspect of well-known and usually not new historical problems - this is an individual creative work. The category of subjectivity retains its place in our aesthetics as the writer's right to an original creative interpretation of the topic on the basis of the objective-materialist approach to history. This is a subjectivity of a new quality, which has nothing to do with the arbitrariness of subjectivism, since the writer does not oppose himself to the deep and enduring social moods, but, on the contrary, strives to express them as clearly and fully as possible.

Events that change life also change people's thinking, change their spiritual peace, change their concepts of the beautiful and the ugly, of the sublime and the low. They also change artistic thinking, which receives verbal and figurative embodiment in literature. Literature is a seismograph for the changes taking place in the lives of peoples. It captures new phenomena and, if they are seeds in the folds of fertile furrows, gives them life. At the same time, it creates an appropriate form to accommodate the new content. The Great October Socialist Revolution is the greatest of these events that change life. It was natural that it would become a turning point in the development of art and literature, especially of those peoples who were most affected by it. Such were the Slavic peoples, not only those in the Soviet Union, but also those outside it. I will not speak here about the Slavic peoples in the Soviet Union - Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians. The turning point that occurred in their general and literary development with the Great October Revolution is well known, obvious to everyone. I will focus on the literatures of the Slavic peoples outside the Soviet Union.

Still a beardless high school student from the countryside, when both distance and circumstances separated me from those extraordinary people who write books and who at that time were for me a kind of unattainable human beings, I had the chance privilege of meeting Dimitar Polyanov and talking to him for nearly half an hour. So he is the first writer with whom I established any direct contact. Moreover, if I did not consider that two years earlier in Rakitovo my acquaintances had pointed out to me from afar the then young K. Konstantinov, I could say that he was the first writer I had ever seen. However, I would like to go back a little and begin my story with another meeting - the meeting not with the man, but with the author and editor, which took place much earlier and without which the second one would hardly ever have taken place.

For the revival of the southern Slavs in the 18th century, the cultural, social and political work of Hristofor Jefarovich played an important role. A Bulgarian by birth, a native of the town of Dojran, his activities took place outside the borders of the Bulgarian lands, mainly among the Serbian population in the then vast Austrian monarchy. He loved to travel a lot, he was in Palestine, and also went to Moscow, where he died in 1754. Hristofor Jefarovich is the author of several books, the most important of which is undoubtedly his "Stematography", published in Vienna in 1741. His desire was to resurrect the glory of the South Slavic peoples - Bulgarians and Serbs, to awaken in them an interest in their native past, so that through this they would think about their difficult life as slaves: "How they were, what a kingdom it was, what nature, with what shield of arms... so that the memory among people would not fade away, but would be in the eternal ages, I dared to write this little book in type". The content of the book highlights Zhefarovich as one of the early, enthusiastic and convinced figures of the South Slavic cultural and political community, his book has indeed achieved the goal outlined by the author - awakening national consciousness among Bulgarians and Serbs, activating this consciousness, which leads them to their political liberation.

An original way for our national poet Ivan Vazov to express his public feeling and duty is the flyer with the poem "Don't!". From the possible references made, it was found that our literature does not mention the existence of a flyer with this work. This is not the first time that Ivan Vazov has resorted to such printing and distribution of his poems. As Kiril Hristov notes, many of the poems included in "Pryaporets Gusla" were scattered in manuscript form in Bucharest. "One of them, namely "The Battle Has Begun, Our Hearts Are Beating," was sung in some places in the Srednogorje Mountains when the April Uprising was announced in 1876. The same fact is confirmed by Yurdan Todorov.

I will not hide that I was moved at the time by this book - The Price of Gold". I touched the exalted soul of the unknown author, the assertive, angry, music cut into sharp and metallic sounds that does not flow, but drags you along with it. As if everything is a revelation that is impossible not to make. And I did not dare to write a single line! This story was so intimate and personal that it forced you to listen to it rather than discuss it. Later I met the author. It turned out that the first impression of the book was not accidental. That it really poured out the entire subjectivity of this man - nervous and painfully acute, with a subtle sense of beauty. It is impossible to talk calmly with Gencho Stoev. He keeps you on your guard, always challenges you and makes you argue. He assesses every fact from his own angle, makes it more unusual, by taking it out of the usual order. Being in his consciousness becomes a movement towards his inner understanding of the beautiful. Always conflicting! Harmony blinds his eyes and this makes him desire it even more ardently. That is why reconciliation touches him less often. His suffering is as if second nature. I have the feeling that G. Stoev is constantly self-analyzing, but not only to make an accurate assessment, but also to provoke pain, self-torment, reproach to himself and the world, in order to experience irritation, which increases the internal tension of thought.

From 1927, when the prominent Bulgarian literary scholar Boyan Penev virtually completed his voluminous "History of New Bulgarian Literature" in the form of university lectures, later systematized and published, to the publication of the second volume of the academic history of Bulgarian literature, four decades passed. Even before the printing of B. Penev's History, many issues of Bulgarian Renaissance literature had been studied, but it was the first and most complete scientific work that comprehensively reflected the literary development of the Bulgarian people from the appearance of "Slavonic-Bulgarian History" to the inspired poetry of Hristo Botev. The long period after its publication was filled with a number of new studies, some of which bear the stamp of original, in-depth scientific research. They shed light on individual aspects of the Bulgarian literary revival, the work of writers and men of letters of varying importance, as well as more specific problems related to the development of the periodical press, school work, pedagogical literature, folklore or the main literary genres, methods and trends. Even before September 9, 1944, very significant studies of a more general nature appeared, which further developed some of Dimitar Blagoev's ideas about the nature of the Bulgarian Revival, subjected certain bourgeois-idealist views and concepts to fundamental criticism, and, in accordance with the Marxist methodology of their authors, revealed in New Light the literary and social work of a number of writers.

Efrem Karanfilov has completed his critical trilogy "Heroes and Characters". This is a major creative work that enriches both the reader's culture and his creative attitude towards some of the brightest achievements of literary fiction.

On June 12 of this year, senior research associate at the Institute of Literature Krastyo Genov successfully defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic "Romanticism in Bulgarian Literature". The defense took place in the large hall of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, where, in addition to the members of the Scientific Council at the Institute of Literature, researchers from other institutes, higher education institutions and many citizens were present. In their written reviews, Prof. Emil Georgiev, Prof. Pencho Penev and Prof. Georgi Dimov made a detailed analysis of the dissertation work.

At two consecutive meetings, the Scientific Council of the Institute of Literature at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences discussed and accepted for publication Vasil Kolevski's work "The Pathos of October", dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. In his review, Angel Todorov emphasized the importance of the topic, gave a positive assessment of the work and concluded that the influence of Soviet literature on Bulgarian is a profound regularity for the activation and development of our entire culture and literature. From this position, the author also considers the issue of the reflection and reception of Soviet literature in Bulgarian progressive periodicals from 1917 to 1944. Angel Todorov made a brief overview of the material presented in the book, emphasized its breadth, systematization and assessment from a modern scientific point of view. He characterized the study as seriously and competently written. He also made some critical remarks.