Dimitar Talev

The first names of writers that I have remembered from a very early age are the names of Ivan Vazov, Pencho Slaveykov and Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. Out of a sense of justice, I should also mention Mayne Reed here, although he holds a special place in my memory, also in my heart, where warm gratitude is reserved for him. My love for P. Slaveykov begins with his poem "Tsar Samuil", but even more so with my first and last meeting with him in person in the churchyard of my hometown in Macedonia in September 1908, when I was just ten years old. Lev Tolstoy holds a special place in both my memory and my heart. I do not remember exactly which of his works I read first, and as a child there, in my hometown, but it was either "Cossacks" or "Hadji Murad", or perhaps both at the same time. Along with my immediate Childish admiration, with a deep feeling of spiritual satisfaction, of clarity and completeness, I remember that even then, with my childish naivety, I felt a desire to become a writer like Leo Tolstoy. And even, with my boyish arrogance, I did not hold back and confided this desire of mine to my closest friends. At this early age we want to resemble those whom we admire the most and whom we love the most. And, when we have not deceived ourselves in our love, these feelings of ours remain unchanged throughout all our ages.

It is unnecessary to speak of criticism as an important stimulating factor of general human progress. This is once and for all established. Also of literary criticism, which is mainly discussed in these few lines. Criticism comes first of all from the mental activity of man. It is knowledge, understanding, strict reasoning, inclination and skill for detailed analysis, reverence for all logic and regularity, ability for deep penetration and a sense for that which may remain hidden for others. Only then is it or, more precisely, can it be a feeling, excitement, a taste for beauty and harmony, rapture, enthusiasm. Only then are the feelings in it subordinate to reason. The critic, the good critic, if we want to arrange the creative forces in him, first of all knows and understands, and then feels. Or no matter how much he has been moved and admired by a given work, in his work as a critic he wants to be primarily fair. He wants to be a courageous judge, interpreter, discoverer. He wants to be honest, impartial. The good critic, the called one, the true one. He is so fair, conscientious and strict, he knows and understands so much that he never puts himself above the work, the creation that he judges and evaluates. Because first the work is born, and then comes the criticism, which is also a work, a creation, but for itself.