Книжка-6

1968 Booklet 6 Contents

"I love you, my dear Fatherland! I love your Balkans, forests, screes, rocks and their clear and cold springs! I love you, my dear land! I love you with all my soul and heart, even if you are doomed to severe suffering and misfortune! Everything that has remained good and holy in my orphaned soul so far is all yours! You are that blessed land that blooms, that is full of tenderness, with radiance and greatness. You have taught me to love and to cry over every human misfortune. And this is already a lot for one person!" These words were spoken by Lyuben Karavelov more than a hundred years ago, but it seems that even now we feel their sincerity. The Revival writer does not try to theorize, to search for bright images, original thoughts, unusual stylistic devices. He speaks simply and naturally about what lies on his soul, and his declaration sounds like a confession, and the inner excitement has imbued ordinary words with immediate freshness. This freshness has not faded to this day.

Every time we come into contact with the poetry of Hristo Smirnenski, we are struck by the flames and lights of our socialist revolution. We remain with particles of his ardor, of his heart, of his boundless love for the "hard-working brothers", for the people's forces unleashed by the revolution, for Moscow blazing with its purple rubies. In these communications with the poet, impulses for struggle, firmness in upholding the communist ideal, confidence in its triumph were born and are born. And it is especially important that these feelings and thoughts arise not only in the conscious fighter, but above all in the worker, among the broadest layers of the people, among those who themselves are the engines of history.

The creative path of Smirnensky, his development, his method have been directly or indirectly considered by almost everyone who has written about the great writer. And if this problem again attracts our attention, the reason for this is its relevance. Overcoming past artistic trends, schools and methods and mastering and developing the method of socialist realism - this is the main content of the literary process in our country for the quarter-century free development of our national literature. The problem of overcoming the worldview and creative limitations of the writers critical realists, modernists, etc. and their transition to the positions of socialist realism - this is the epochal task in the development of world literature; a task whose solution depends on the outcome of the great duel between labor and capital, between bourgeois and socialist ideology.

The great proletarian poet usually lives in our consciousness with the dazzling brilliance of his poetic images, with the captivating dynamics and heroism of mass revolutionary scenes, with his youthful exaltation. Smirnensky was a contemporary of epochal, hitherto unheard-of events in history. Dizzy by their grandeur, the poet saw them in fantastic outlines. For him, the rebellious slaves turned into titans, who, having built their enormous stature on a par with mountain ridges, carry within themselves the sun and the storm, and the revolution was an angrily erupting volcano, a stormy sea, a fierce element of ocean waves, a bristled fiery colossus. "A fairy tale of fiery images and paintings" - this is how Georgi Bakalov defined the form of Smirnensky's revolutionary poetry. But if we exhaust the poet's creative portrait with these features alone, it would be very incomplete. The inspired proletarian singer turned out to be a master not only in revolutionary poetry, but also in tender, intimate lyrics, in the short story, in the essay, in the feuilleton and in satirical poetry. In Smirnensky, the poet, the fiction writer, the cheerful humorist and the merciless satirist happily combined. And in all genres he achieved a rare variety of stylistic techniques, he emerged as a unique creative individuality. It was as if the muses had fallen madly in love with this fiery young man and generously showered him with versatile gifts. Along with the titanic images of the October Revolution, of the rebellious masses, Johann, Delecluze, the gladiator, the little gavroshchés, the street woman, the tobacco worker scarred by the "yellow guest", the stonemason, the florist, the blind musician, the Russian peasants condemned to starvation appear before us as alive. They are all drawn in natural height, without romantic embellishment. And in "Winter Evenings" with great simplicity and expressiveness, pictures of harsh everyday life are drawn. Many of the stories are written with the same simplicity. In them the tone is not so elevated, there is not that titanicness of the images, as in much of the revolutionary poetry.

Hristo Smirnenski lived and worked in a turbulent and majestic era, saturated with revolutionary dynamics and mass heroism, with a premonition of the rising revolution. These were the heroic and crucial post-war years, years of a powerful revolutionary upsurge, of an unprecedented drive of the proletariat to win a free and happy life, years illuminated by the greatest event in the history of mankind - the October Revolution. The entire era was saturated with heroic flame, with rallies and demonstrations, with mass unrest, with an open and determined struggle against oppression and exploitation. The authority and influence of the Bulgarian Communist Party during this period were constantly growing, it was rapidly becoming mass and expanding, establishing itself as a leading factor in the socio-political life of the country.

The impact of the October Socialist Revolution and Soviet fiction does not only imply the dissemination of ideas, the translation and reading of books. This is perhaps the purely external side of this complex and deeply contradictory process. But as an "external side" it also has its place and significance. However, it is no less important to see the ideological and aesthetic changes that occurred in the creative development of individual our writers and in literature as a whole after October. A new aspect in this regard is the way in which we responded to the first October events. Because new art, new production means, first of all, the discovery of a new form, on the one hand, and, on the other - the rejection of the "old" rules in order to manifest the new ones. And not only that. The new is never born suddenly, on the contrary - the elements from which it will "crystallize" accumulate for a long time. The new inherits and simultaneously elevates to a higher level that which prepared its appearance.

It is always interesting to follow the creative development of a talented poet, to see his persistent searches, those elusive, barely noticeable zigzags in his path, his gradual growth, the changes that occur with him. And this tracing is so instructive. It can protect us from mistaken and hasty enthusiasms when assessing artists, especially young ones. Every true development of talent is terribly individual, uneven in its external manifestations. And yet there is always a common basis. The life and activity of the creative personality are the same and at the same time - always different, new, unique. In the original, inspired creativity, as in a starry sky, the diversity of the near and far, bright and paler stars, of the iridescent combinations of colorful contrasts, amazes. In each of the individual particles there are impulses, separate worlds are hidden, paths to the infinite. There is no beginning and no end - and at the same time, it seems that each of the stars is both a beginning and an end... AND AND When we admire the work of an interesting poet, we may be surprised by the beginning of his searches. Often the first creative impulses present the artist in a special light. Often later on he is completely different, at least that is how he appears externally. Because at the core there is always something that connects the diverse manifestations, gives a strictly outlined completeness, makes even polar phenomena acceptably united in a unique and healthy unity, in a whole. In poetry we always observe a deep individual meaningfulness, there is always something regular, truthful, LOGICAL.

Dimcho Debelyanov established himself in our poetry as the continuator of a poetic tradition, established through the work of Vazov, Pencho Slaveykov, Yavorov, Kiril Hristov. At the time when Debelyanov began his career as a poet, poems were written in the usual rhythms of the syllabic system. Vazov had already imposed it and had used all its rhythmic schemes, trying not to go beyond their framework. He had, to a certain extent, "engraved the word in the step". Most of the poets of that time did not seem to feel that the accepted rhythmic schemes could be diversified. We leave aside, of course, Yavorov, who was a true innovator in terms of the technique of verse. He not only did not allow the usual stress of the word to be changed because of its place in the verse, nor did he allow it to be damaged, but he was the first to consciously and with a swing begin to diversify the rhythm of his verse and made the rhythmic movement an expression of the deepest inner content. Yavorov pointed out the entire musical wealth of Bulgarian poetic speech and the possibilities for the rhythmic refreshment of the syllabic system. The path that D. Debelyanov bravely set out on had already been paved. Debelyanov's creative period closed between the years 1906-1916. This was the time when in our country a struggle was waged in poetry against realism, accepted as obsolete, and when the belated echoes of French symbolism is making its way.

Pencho Slaveykov's attitude towards our folk art is not one of the unclear and unknown issues of his thought and poetry. Moreover, he is one of those artists who turn to the folklore of his people not only directly - with his personal poetic work - but also through a number of statements, articles, studies. This facilitates the study of the problem posed and to a certain extent directs its solution. I will not dwell on Pencho Slaveykov's views on Bulgarian folk art, expressed theoretically, but on those that we find in works such as "Ralitsa", "Chunar", "Lud Gidiya", "Nerazelni", "Lyatna Vecher" and many others, which grew under the direct influence of folk works or were nourished by them. On the other hand, I will try to trace the dependence of Pencho Slaveykov's journalistic statements on the relationship between the talent of the artist and the talent of the folk singer; to what extent is the influence between them; to what extent these statements become a principle for his personal creativity.

In "I Live in Berkovitsa," the folk poet tells of his life in this small but beautiful mountain town. of his service as chairman of the district court, of the people he befriended, of the walks through the beautiful mountain scenery that helped restore his shaky health from the turbulent life in the then malarial Ruschuk, where he served in the Governorate as a "junior clerk for special orders." e On days free from work - the poet writes in these memories - I made joyful outings on horseback with a young group of Berkovci, with the doctor and the governor through the dense beech forests that cover the skirts and sides of the Stara Planina, intoxicated by the sound of the crystal mountain streams, by the breath of the grasses and flowers, by my youth and by everything, everything". .. *"Kom reminds me, however, of a crime - Vazov continues further - that we committed with the district governor. It still haunts my soul and now I will confess it (A. T. - Vazov wrote this memory 31 years after the event, if we judge by the date placed under this memory, published in the newspaper "Speech"). We found three beams set on Kom, which formed a kind of narrow high pyramid, built with stones and supported by transverse trees. We wondered what this thing was. A shepherd told us that Serbs had placed it as a sign on the border between Serbia and Bulgaria... And, overcome with patriotic indignation, we overturned the unfortunate wooden pyramid through the guards. A few days later, a Russian topographic officer told the governor that some mischievous people had pushed the trigonometric sign on the Kom! In the novel "New Land", Part III, Chapter VIII ("The Pyramid") Vazov tells of this "crime", but attributes it to Dikiy Barin, an image that he also uses in the humorous story "Mitrofan and Dormidolsky" in the person of Dormidolsky. The prototype of both characters is the judge Ivan Stoyanov, called "Grandpa Ivan" by the Berkovitsa residents, with whom Vazov lives in the house of Zlatish Hasan.

In the history of our literary customs, Dr. Krastev's letters to Kiril Hristov are a bright page, a magnificent act of trust and devotion and at the same time a testament to the ethical and aesthetic positions of one of the greatest Bulgarian critics. Kiril Hristov became close to the editor of the magazine "Misl" while still a student at the 1st male gymnasium, where at the same time Krastev taught philosophy. In early 1895, not immediately before his departure for Italy, Kiril Hristov entrusted him with some of his literary works. In the following months, the poems "Octava" appeared in "Misl". "To the Seaside", "Under the Window", "Zuylema", and the Sea Sonnets (Kiril Hristov included the aforementioned poems in his first collection of poems "Songs and Sighs"). Convinced of the young poet's poetic talent, the editor of "Misl" attracted him as a contributor to the magazine, promoted him in literary circles, wrote enthusiastic reviews for "Songs and Sighs" and "Tre peti". What's more, this outwardly dry and focused critic became a patron, friend and teacher of the young Kiril Hristov, striving to give some direction to his poetic talent, to soften his painful predispositions, to facilitate and clarify his personal life. "The only support in this difficult time - Kiril Hristov shares - I had in the strong character of Krasteva, whom I loved more and more and to whom I became more and more attached. His influence on me, both then and later, was irreplaceable, gracious... I felt that this man could go through water and fire for the one he valued and loved... The editorial office of the magazine "Misl", in fact the home of Dr. Krastev, became for me a blessed, quiet harbor from the very first day. I could visit my recent teacher, who had become a close friend, at any time. I felt him as my closest relative, blood and spiritual. I could share my greatest worries with him. There was no mental, painful state or external unexpected unpleasantness that he would not meet with the greatest participation and with a reasonable practical plan for sobering up" (From the memoirs of Kiril Hristov "Clogged Sofia"). Because Dr. Krastev does not seek the meaning of his critical activity solely in the evaluation work.

And in the many studies on the life and work of Petko Slaveykov, his personality as a public figure and creator with great charm continues to be at the center of scientific research on the national peculiarities and the rapid development of Bulgarian Renaissance literature. And this is mainly due to the exceptional importance that Slaveykov has as the creator of New Bulgarian poetry, as an editor of meaningful periodicals and as a courageous tribune of Bulgarian national consciousness, who retained self-control in the face of more than one mishap in his diverse patriotic endeavors. But not only for this important reason. It so happened that in the literature about this our poet and public figure, quite a few aesthetic, bourgeois-idealistic, subjective and essentially unscientific assessments were preserved for the longest time, either for his political and social views, or for his individual works or - which is especially important - for the main directions of his poetic work.

Even while publishing separate excerpts from his book about Yordan Yovkov in the literary press, Simeon Sultanov reminded us of a writer, loved and forgotten, declared during his lifetime a living classic of Bulgarian literary prose... Always reminiscent of this Yovkov, who is well known today to every educated Bulgarian. And even then, the separate fragments of his book attracted the eye of the curious reader, who understood the insights and inspiration of the critic, who can talk to the writer's characters as if they were living people, who can discover, without artificial pathos and learned eloquence, the simple charm, poetic wisdom and greatness of one of the most original Bulgarian writers.

It is almost impossible to define this book by genre. It is entitled "Philosophical Literary Etudes". Already in the title, Isaac Passy has hinted at its diversity. Because this is a collection composed of philosophical sketches on works from the world literary classics. From Boccaccio to Thomas Mann, from the Early Renaissance to the mid-twentieth century. From "The Decameron" to "Doctor Faustus". The author, and also the artist (in designing the title) had in mind the greater proximity of the book to the philosophical sketch and have emphasized this proximity in order to make it easier for the reader. The difficulty in defining it in terms of genre comes not only from the many focuses of Philosophy and especially aesthetics with literature, but also from the "lack" of unity in the approach of its author. Isaac Passy is not a Literary Critic and he does not approach the works from the positions of a literary scholar-researcher. And yet these are critical studies in which philosophy and literature go hand in hand; they condition each other. Moreover, in the contemporary state of knowledge, there is not and cannot be a precise demarcation between the individual sciences; very often they study the same object - in this case - the Literary Work. And the author is a living person and when he writes, he thinks least of all about which branch lovers of precise classifications and pedants will attribute his work to. However, the given predominance of philosophy is evident not only in the deliberate selection of the works ("The Unknown Masterpiece" by Balzac is a philosophical study, and Voltaire's "Candide" ephilosophical story), but also in the conscious search for philosophical and aesthetic problems, and in works whose authors were never art theorists, nor were they concerned with the fate of the creator of artistic values. Writers such as Cervantes and Shakespeare, for example, consciously or not, have left behind a lot of problems and dilemmas - resolved and unresolved, and perhaps even unsolvable, over which people have been pondering for four centuries. But if they had said clearly and categorically who Hamlet is and who Don Quixote, would these works have attracted generations so strongly? As they are, they give the reader the opportunity to build their own ideas, which they can contrast with others.

"From Pure Form to the Literature of Facts" is a pioneering work in a somewhat neglected area of ​​contemporary literary studies. Given that literature up to the twentieth century has been fully developed and selected, and even traditions have been created in literary studies, the spontaneous and immanent nature of critical positions on twentieth-century literature stands out even more clearly. There is no analytical criterion for it, and therefore there is no work that has shown the integral directions of development throughout its complex and heterogeneous movement in time. An influence in this regard is undoubtedly the fact that many literary movements are still alive and, with their directions of evolution and metamorphoses, often diametrically change their relationships and put a question mark over some fundamental positions in their assessment. And in literary criticism itself, similar processes can be observed. The listed positions, as well as others for which there is no need to devote space in a small review, subject the writing of a book to from a similar risk of brevity, confine it to a certain, undoubtedly short period of time. Moreover, its ambitions and depth make this period even shorter, because a small change in the treatment of literary phenomena can turn an otherwise logical structure into a compilation of concepts devoid of a single interpretative basis. What is Hutnikevich's opinion on this issue? "The creation of the book was necessitated by three things - didactic needs, insufficient information, and the backwardness of scientific Polish studies in the field of popularization of scientific achievements." So the author himself evaluates his book more as a textbook than as a scientific work in a backward field. In this respect, the author has undoubtedly achieved his goal.

The current stage of the development of Bulgarian literary studies is characterized by the awareness of the ever-growing need to specify the methodology, to build a secure basis for a private and general theoretical interpretation of the artistic facts, in order to be able to cope with all possible deviations from scientific truth, accumulated by both vulgar sociology and subjectivist criticism, which in a number of its manifestations demonstrates its militant anti-scientificity. By the way, there is one aspect in which subjectivism and vulgar sociology converge as much as possible: along with the claim to the indisputability of their assessments, the representatives of both directions showed disregard for the specificity of the work of art. This found expression in the arbitrary interpretation of the text, in a misunderstanding (underestimation and overestimation) of its structural features, and hence - underestimation of the function and semantics of both the whole and its elements.

On October 16, 1968, in Sofia, in the great hall of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, a solemn celebration was held on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the birth of one of the most prominent representatives of Bulgarian literary studies - Acad. Mihail Arnaudov. The hall turned out to be cramped for the numerous admirers of the jubilee, among whom were prominent Bulgarian public figures, writers, scientific and cultural figures, students, and citizens. The presidium was occupied by Acad. Todor Pavlov, Acad. Angel Balevski, Acad. Pantelei Zarev, Acad. Vladimir Georgiev, Patriarch Kiril, Georgi Dzhagarov, Efrem Karanfilov, Stoyko Bozhkov - director of the Institute of Literature, and others.