Gancho Savov

More than twenty years ago, a Belgrade newspaper conducted a poll to find out which of its compatriots Yugoslavs considered the most popular. After the poll was completed, the name of Branislav Nušić was at the top of the list, along with that of the football player Moša Marjanović. This was and is one of the rare cases in our time when a great writer is surrounded by such popularity. In order to gain it, he undoubtedly entered both the everyday and the festive 1 Boyan Ničev - Branislav Nušić", publishing house of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1962 120 people. Only this could make them categorically place him among their chosen ones of the day. Because the greatness of a famous mind is usually not accompanied by great popularity.

There is very little talk about translations of works of art in our country. Or if there is talk, the conversations will be more in general terms than specific, about individual works. And readers end up with both good and impossible translations. This is the case, for example, with translations from Yugoslav literature. Their qualities are completely different - from good and artistic ("Autobiography" by Branislav Nušić, the prose of Miroslav Krlezha, Ivo Andrić, Ivan Csankar, etc.) to bad and scandalous (the satires of Radoe Domanović, "The Survivors of Nikoletina Bursace" by Branko Čopić, and "Impurity Blood" by Borisav Stanković). The last three books are perhaps the worst translations published in our country in the past ten years.

A serious and difficult problem is finding the new in contemporary Yugoslav literature. This is due to the great diversity of literary methods, trends and schools, each of them with its own "family" concepts and principles, with its own talented representatives and, of course, with arguments that they are the bearers of the new. And it is practically impossible to give an objective assessment right now of some of these creative methods whether they are really new or just an unlived fashion. (The old is easily recognized!) All this is because poetics follows poetry.

The breadth of the concept of history in its present sense in itself determines the complexity of the task that confronts the compilers of works on the history of literature. Solving this task requires, above all, an exceptionally competent penetration into the spirit of the time about which one writes and into the spirit of the time in which one writes. For we can be less and less satisfied with literary histories that are reduced to stating facts and commenting on events, proceeding from literary works. We are talking about something significantly more complex: showing literature as an expression of spiritual, social and economic processes in their progressive development. This means that literary history has radically changed its role and purpose, trying to penetrate deeply to the foundations of social phenomena, creative impulses, etc. Objectivist registration can no longer be its distinguishing feature. It now aims to provide a broad panorama of the literary and spiritual life of peoples in different eras, to shed light on literary, and hence social, sociological problems from our point of view. It is true that literary history has its own methods and literary creation is examined in it with different intentions than poetics examines them. But in its current state, literary history already has a significantly comprehensive and generalizing character and connects a number of defining elements from individual literary sciences. If we decide to look for general historical works on Slavic literatures, written from such an aspect, they will turn out to be very few. And one of them, which in some respects strives to meet these requirements, is the two-volume "Essays on the History of Slavic Literatures" by Prof. Dr. Emil Georgiev.

Literary historians have not yet studied sufficiently the rich material on the traditional interest of the cultural community in the small Slavic nation - the Slovenes (numbering 1,600,000 inhabitants today) in our people, in their fate and their culture. There is evidence of this interest as early as the sixteenth century. Several prominent Slovenes of that time - the travel writer Benedikt Kuripečić, the diplomat Žiga Višnegorski, the first Slovene grammarian Adam Bohorič and one of the giants in Slovene literary and political life, the great Slovene enlightener Primož Trubar (1508-1586) - not only mention the name of the Bulgarians, but also speak with a certain sympathy for them. In later times, the interest intensified, acquired a more problematic character, the Bulgarian language and culture became the subject of study and research in the works of several notable people from small Slovenia: the figure of the Slovenian Renaissance Žiga Zojs, the scholar Jernej Kopitar and the continuer of his work Franz Miklošić, etc. And the most prominent poets of the late 19th century - Anton Askerc, Simon Gregorčić and Josip Stritar, as well as Matija Majar-Zilski, Josipina Turnogradska, Anton Slomšek, L. Klinar wrote works with Bulgarian themes.

Literary history is still indebted to a very important question: the interest of other nations in our people. I say that it is still indebted because this question has not been a thing of the past, but has been considered partially or, most often, its subject has been studies of individual mutual influences. Thus, many facts have been clarified that have shown the interest of people from another nation in ours. Generalizing, systematizing and exhaustive studies and publications of this kind, although few in number, are already appearing, expanding the horizons of literary history and even more accurately and truthfully defining the place and role of the Bulgarian people in literary Europe. Of particular value for us are the interests that the Slavic peoples have shown and are showing in our people. Books have already appeared about our relations with some of them, there may already be works in manuscript about others, and still others have not been well studied. These third ones include our ties with the Slovenian people, which have been evident for several centuries - sometimes more intensely, sometimes less. They have always expressed a marked interest of the progressive Slovenian cultural community in the fate and life of our people, and have shown the desire for close ties and a thorough acquaintance with the Bulgarians. This short and chronological article could not cover everything that is known about this interest. And it has no other purpose than to inform about its development, to give a very concise picture of the attitude that matured in Slovenia towards us. The studies that we are doing now and which we believe will bring new things, will be the subject of a more extensive work on this issue.