Stefana Tarinska

Half a year before leaving with his detachment for his homeland, Hristo Botev, together with Stefan Stambolov, published a small book with a title as unpretentious and modest as his entire appearance: "Songs and Poems by Boteva and Stambolova". This was the only attempt by the revolutionary writer to take a look at his creative path, and only in the field of poetry. The search for and publication of his entire literary work remains a task for generations, a great and responsible task that has not been finally solved to this day. What has been done in the past and what is the status of the issue of Botev's literary heritage today?

The feuilleton work of Hristo Botev is not large in volume - only seven works and covers a relatively short period of time - about two years. But it gave expression to characteristic trends in the development of satirical prose during the Revival and finally established the feuilleton as a full-fledged form in our fiction. Botev's feuilleton appears on the pages of the newspaper "Budilniki". Obviously, these are not the writer's first attempts at journalistic satire, nor his initial searches in the field of the feuilleton genre. Botev's humorous newspaper reflects the capabilities of a mature satirist and the individual handwriting of a master of the feuilleton. When issue 1 of "Budilniki" was published, Hristo Botev had already been working for ten months in the editorial office of the newspaper "Nezavisimost" as Karavelov's assistant. His idea of ​​publishing a satirical newspaper was not detached from the tasks that faced the organ of the revolutionary party. The intensification of socio-political struggles, the activation of anti-revolutionary elements, especially after the capture and death of V. Levski, forced the satirical denunciation from the positions of the revolution to seek a wider field of action. During the period 1869-1876, numerous attempts were made in the country and among the emigration to publish satirical newspapers. And in the organ of the revolutionary party itself, we observe, along with the maintenance of a permanent satirical column, the invasion of the satirical element in almost all journalistic forms, up to the editorial notes of the newspaper. Botev's "Alarm Clock" undoubtedly arose as an assistant to the revolutionary organ, in order to raise the exposing pathos of the column "Do you know who we are?"

Lyuben Karavelov is one of the few Bulgarian nationalists who collected and carefully preserved documents about his diverse social and writing activities. Unfortunately, his uncertain emigrant fate, and after his death - irresponsibility and negligence, became the reason for the dispersion and, for the most part, destruction of this Karavelov collection, so valuable for the history of our cultural life. Little and mostly fragmentary materials have reached us - heart-wrenching fragments of a rich and multifaceted comprehensive work. The preserved manuscripts from Karavelov's archive are today kept in the Bulgarian Historical Archive at the Cyril and Methodius National Library and in the Boyan Penev Archive at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Difficult to read, they have remained almost unused to this day. It was not until 1964 that three collaborators from the Institute of Literature - Docho Lekov, Lilyana Minkova and Tsveta Undzhieva - published the most significant of them in one solid volume: "From the Archive of Lyuben Karavelov. Manuscripts, Materials and Documents". The publication includes primarily Karavelov's manuscripts and some manuscripts of his collaborators, closely related to the writings of Karavelov himself. Abandoned are copies of foreign artistic or scientific works, known translations of his, or manuscripts of his famous works. The compilers present us with a volume composed almost entirely of new materials, reflecting the diverse creative activity of the great Bulgarian Renaissance public figure and writer.

In December 1967, at the Institute of Literature, the Section for Bulgarian Literature before the Liberation discussed and accepted for publication the research presented for the collection "Literature and Folklore". The discussion, conducted under the leadership of Prof. P. Dinekov, was attended by: Prof. B. St. Angelov, Prof. G. Dimov, Dr. Kr. Genov, research assistants B. Nichev, S. Baeva, D. Lekov, Tsv. Undzhieva, L. Grasheva, St. Tarinska and others. Thirteen works were accepted for publication: P. Dinekov - Literature and Folklore", B. Nichev - "Literary and Folklore Artistic Consciousness", Kr. Genov - "Observations on the Typology of Bulgarian Folk Poetry", St. Nikolova - Paterical Tales and Folklore", D. Lekov - Folklore and the Formation of Bulgarian Fiction during the Revival", Tsv. Undzhieva - Slaveykov's Feuilleton and Folk Art", V. Valchev - Pencho Slaveykov and Folk Art", St. Boyadzhieva - Petko Todorov's "Prayer" and the Folklore Tradition", P. Totev - "With Contemporary Bulgarian Satire and Folklore", Iv. Koynakov - Botev's Poetry and Bulgarian Folk Songs to the Armed Anti-Fascist Struggle 1941-1944", E. Ognyanova - Mama and Her Tales", N. Kaufman - "The Rhyming Verses in Our Folk Song",