Simeon Sultanov

A resourceful French artist painted Rabelais's portrait in an interesting composition: behind the great satirist stand Homer and Socrates - the one the embodiment of poetry, and the other - of wisdom. In front of Rabelais's brilliant work "Gargantua and Pantagruel" one can see a "crowd" of writers who have more or less experienced the influence of his ironic laughter. Among the crowd of artists are depicted such brilliant masters of the pen as Moliere, Swift, Lesage, Voltaire, Balzac, in whose satirical works, according to the artist, the unfading tradition of the cheerful French monk lives. Whatever the extent of Rabelais's influence on the work of these writers, their satire is still so peculiar, so "theirs" that we call it "Moliere's satire", "Swift's satire", "Balzac's satire", thereby expressing its peculiarity. Every gifted author who wields a Juvenal whip in his hand, without necessarily being in the ranks of those great morons I mentioned above, has his own characteristic sarcasm, or, so to speak, as many satirists exist in literature as there is bitter laughter.

In September 1920, Yordan Yovkov was appointed by order of Prime Minister Alexander Stamboliyski as a clerk at the Bulgarian legation in Bucharest, where he spent about six years holding various positions: "press assistant", "secretary", and finally, as a "reward" for his conscientious work, due to the "lack" of the necessary qualifications, he had to fulfill the duties of... Dragoman". Despite his official employment and his difficult financial situation, in the Romanian capital he worked with true inspiration and for the joy of Bulgarian culture - he completed "The Song of the Wheels", wrote "Stara Planina Legends" and began "Evenings at the Antimov Inn". Yovkov's life in Bucharest, as his letters and the memories of his friends testify, was difficult and joyless. The plenipotentiary ministers at that time were Todor Nedkov, General Iv. Fichev, Georgi Kyoseivanov and Svetoslav Pomenov, who treated the writer with disdain and looked at him almost as an ordinary official, something more - as an imbecile. On various occasions, the writer wrote letters to his friends in his homeland, shared with them his difficult fate and rewarded them for small favors. Some of these letters were published in books and magazines and are known to the Bulgarian reader. (See Grigor Vassilev, "Yordan Yovkov", 1940 and "Unpublished Letters of Yordan Yovkov" magazine "Literary Thought", vol. 5, 1957).