Tsveta Undzhieva

In recent years, significant differences have emerged in the assessment of the creative method of individual Renaissance writers, opposing opinions have been expressed about the beginning of critical realism, and the question of romanticism and realism in our Renaissance literature has been raised. In his study "The Problem of Romanticism and Bulgarian Literature" 1 P. Dinekov examines, along with romanticism, some other questions: the relationship between sentimentalism and romanticism, revolutionary romance and romanticism, etc. Characterizing romanticism, the author makes a number of general observations about realism, which is the only one to take shape as a literary school with its own lasting traditions", but whose "first manifestations can only be separated with great difficulty from the strongly mixed elements of sentimentalism and romanticism". In our literary science, the prevailing view is that critical realism was first established as a specific direction in the creative work of L. Karazelov, who was its founder. P. R. Slaveykov does not reach the critical realism. P. Zarev dwells on this issue in more detail. Slaveykov's work, in Zarev's words, is in principle, in character and in pictorial system a work of pre-critical realism and a transition to it. 2 The opposite thesis is advocated by G. Tsanev in his article "The Beginning of Critical Realism in Bulgarian Literature." 33 He claims that almost all Bulgarian writers, with the exception of the representatives of proletarian literature and socialist realism, as well as the predecessor of socialist realism in our country - Hr. Botev (naturally, and the representatives of decadent literary movements) are critical realists, with all their work or with a part of it. The gaze of Bulgarian writers is turned towards society, the critical-accusatory tone is inherent in Bulgarian literature. Further, the author disputes the prevailing view that L. Karavelov is the founder of Bulgarian critical realism and comes to the conclusion that the first representative of critical realism in our literature is P. R. Slaveykov. To prove this statement, the author of the essay refers to two poems - Boy, gather your wits", written in 1857 and Song for my coin - from 1861 - poems that reflect a critical satirical attitude towards "the robber and reveal the power of money, on which everything in the emerging bourgeois society depends. Critical realism before the Liberation is a reflection of reality, in which a struggle is waged not only against bourgeois social relations, but also against the national and social oppression of Turkish feudalism. "Critical realism in our country is directly, organically connected with the national liberation struggle of our people". "The object of artistic reflection also includes moments of national character and feudal nature." The above-mentioned views on realism before the Liberation are far from exhausting everything written on the subject. Our task is only to outline some basic theses and fundamental differences.

The question of literary influences on Karavelov is complex and interesting. It is inextricably linked with the entire complex of problems of the writer's creative path, of the features, place and significance of his literary work. It cannot be properly understood if we do not approach it concretely and historically. The concretely and historically approach implies a study not only of the historical moment, but also of the specific features of national development, of the national cultural process. As a writer, L. Karavelov learned from the work of strictly defined authors: primarily from revolutionary-democratic Russian and Ukrainian literature and from Gogol's work. The revolutionary-democratic direction influenced him with two of its main tendencies, manifested, on the one hand, in the works of writers who developed the journalistic genre in fiction, such as Chernyshevsky and Herzen, and on the other hand, in works that are distinguished by a peculiar national, even populist pathos. The most significant representative of the latter trend is the Ukrainian writer M. Vovchok. The influence of M. Vovchok and T. Shevchenko on Karavelov's work is particularly strong, undeniable. The task of the present work is to raise and clarify some questions about the development of the fiction writer Karavelov, in connection with the influence of the Ukrainian writer M. Vovchok, about the common trends in their work and about the differences between them.

In recent months, our Botev studies have been enriched with another valuable contribution - the book by St. Tarinska "The Prose of Hristo Botev". Not large in volume, this new book about the great son of our people is the result of long-term, systematic, in-depth research work. Its subject is the relatively little-studied prose of Botev - his articles, essays and feuilletons. The author has collected a large amount of historical and literary material and has built a study that is distinguished by its overall harmonious composition, internal logic and consistency, in-depth penetration and analysis. With the scientific precision, accuracy and analytical skills of a talented literary historian, Tarinska collects observations and facts, traces the path of the publicist and feuilletonist, outlines the atmosphere of the time more and more closely, and delve deeper and deeper into the peculiarities and uniqueness of the literary process. Interesting precisely from a literary-historical point of view is the versatile, very specific analysis that she makes of the works under consideration - articles, essays and feuilletons. The method of fragmentation, of detailed literary-historical analysis is applied particularly consistently in the most extensive chapter of the study - "Master of the Feuilleton". The author searches for the sources used in writing each feuilleton, which served as material and as an occasion for the feuilletonist. Studying with literary-historical depth the "prehistory" of the work, i.e. the occasion for its emergence, the sources, the prototypes, Tarinska arrives at interesting observations, imperceptibly and slightly entering its atmosphere. The author argues with Al. Burmov about the time in which the feuilleton "The Wardrobe" was written, without getting carried away by the accumulation of facts for its own sake, in historicism for its own sake. "Al. Burmov's arguments at first glance are completely plausible and convincing, she writes, but if we carefully follow the content of the work and turn to the actual facts that lie at its foundation, we will see that his statement is false. We will dwell on this issue in more detail not only to specify the time of the creation of the feuilleton, but because this is largely a question of the principles on which Botev builds the feuilleton work." (p. 106). 1 Stefana Tarinska, The Prose of Hristo Botev", ed. Nauka i izkustvo, S., 1966. Tarinska is constantly searching for "principles", the main problems. The specific analysis of "The Closet" leads to principled conclusions and generalizations about the birth and development of the feuilleton theme, about Botev's ability to remain faithful to the actual fact and at the same time provide himself with sufficient distance to organize his material in such a way that the great social theme resonates. Through the analysis, the answer to the question is reached - how does the feuilletonist embed the actual fact in the general fabric of the work? For Botev, "the concrete-topical is not an illustration of the idea, but an expression of the idea. That is why he needs it in its unity between the particular and the general - as it manifests itself in reality itself." When examining the feuilleton "That Night I Dreamed..." Tarinska again searches for the principle on which the satirical exposure is built, discovers the intersection of the small and large themes of the feuilleton, the connection of the plot development. And she comes to the summary: "A constant overflow, a constant transition from the small to the large theme of the work. A continuous alternation of the fable-allegorical with the real-believable and all this through unexpected transitions, at the same time smooth, logical" in its illogicality, externally acceptable - on these principles Botev builds the feuilleton story." (p. 120) The analysis of "That Night I Dreamed..." gives the author material to reveal Botev's ability to fabulate, to create with ease and ease a feuilleton plot - interesting and deeply meaningful, saturated with a wide variety of motifs and at the same time monolithic and purposeful", to build the plot development on specific evil daily facts and at the same time project it onto the big, fundamental issues of the time, giving it a clear political focus.

Botev's feuilletons are the highest achievement in the development of Bulgarian feuilleton until the Liberation. They are closely related to Karavelov's feuilleton. Botev undoubtedly learned from Karavelov, set out on the path outlined by him, adopted the main genre and style features of his feuilletons. The general, principled attitude of Karavelov and Botev to the factual basis of the feuilleton, to the artistic image, to the journalistic essence, power and pathos of the feuilleton denunciation, to the great revolutionary tasks that the feuilletonist solves and to which his work also serves, are very close in both authors. The deep connection and continuity in their creative work of great masters of the feuilleton is undeniable. At the same time, however, Botev takes a significant step forward. His feuilletons are one of the peaks not only in the history of Bulgarian feuilleton, but in the development of our literature in general. Despite the great proximity and undeniable continuity with Karavel's feuilletons, Botev's feuilleton legacy has its own independent place and significance, and is subject to its own laws. The great proximity is accompanied by deep and essential differences. The more we delve into the structural and generally artistic features of Botev's feuilleton, the more clearly its peculiar world emerges.

The Soviet scientist K. A. Poglubko continued for several years to research the Bulgarian-Russian revolutionary relations of the 1960s and 1970s. The result of his research are the interesting studies "Iz istorii Russko-Bulgarskikh revolutionarynyh syvyaz kontsa 60-kh ogode XIX c." (News of the Academy of Moldavian SSR, No. 1, 1965), "Some new materials about the connections of Russian revolutionaries with H. Botev in the early 1970s." (Izvestia AN Moldavskoi SSR, No. 2, 1966), "Connections of Bulgarian and Russian emigrants (1869)" (Izvestia AN Moldavskoi SSR, book 1, 1968) and others. The studios are interconnected. They are obviously key moments of a comprehensive monographic work that will shed new light on a remarkable heroic period of our national Revival and on the activities of the greatest figures of the era.