Magdalena Shishkova

Bogomil Raynov's story "Roads to Nowhere" belongs to the series of works by our most restless and searching fiction writers, in which, based on a liberated aesthetic ideal and an idea of ​​today's man enriched by the experience of the last decade, our complex and dramatic modernity is depicted. It captivates us with the sincere civic anxiety and anti-dogmatic pathos with which the author poses the problem of the harmony between the individual and the environment, which was disrupted during the cult of personality, of the freedom of thought and scientific research, of the self-awareness and creative realization of modern man. A writer with a clearly expressed active attitude towards reality, with a sharp analytical mind and a subtle sense for the current social conflicts and ideological and moral issues of our heroic and exciting modernity, Bogomil Raynov could not remain on the sidelines of the conversation that has begun in our literature in recent years on the most vital issues of modern life. "Modernity - this is us we - shares B. Raynov. Everyone defines their attitude towards it in their own way. The writer does it with his books. The problem of modernity - or rather a piece of it, is also reflected in my latest book "Roads to Nowhere. Why did I write it? This was necessary for me, I felt obliged to take my position on some phenomena of modernity, phenomena with distant roots in the past and with a belated, short-lived flowering in our time: careerism, slander, servility. Literature is always a battle for something better, against something that challenges it". The position that Bogomil Raynov takes in this story is a position of honesty, of 1 Bogomil Raynov, Roads to Nowhere, story, 1966 2 See Trud newspaper, issue 16, 1966 136 moral vigilance and the free citizen Danish conscience. The story "Roads to Nowhere" is one of those works of fiction whose artistic significance is determined primarily by the truthful recreation of the tense spiritual atmosphere of our decade, of the characteristic of our time, above all ideological and moral purposefulness of the intellectual pursuits of modern man. It is one of those works that many trust because they discover episodes from their own spiritual biography in them. It attracts us because with some of its moments it gives us a key to penetrating the mystery of the tragic end of personalities who, with their deeds and moral charm, have become our spiritual idols.

For years, for obvious reasons, our literary scholarship has been shedding light on the creative and life path of the writer Dimitar Talev in a very uneven way. Divided by the gamut of historical events in 1944-1945, this path offers a heterogeneous ideologically and emotionally, artistically unequal and unequally grateful material for studying the author. The mature work of D. Talev, which attracts with a true abundance of ideological and aesthetic problems, social and life conflicts, of human images and motives, is quite justified in the center of the most significant studies to date on the literary work of the writer. The attention of D. Talev researchers continues to be directed today to the great ideological and artistic wealth of the four-volume historical epic, a work that has secured an inviolable place in the heart of every Bulgarian, and has won for the author the name of an indisputable master of everyday-historical narration. Before tracing the writer's overall creative development, before outlining his appearance in detail, it was imperative to understand the beauty and power of that series of novels that earned the author extraordinary popularity and recognition. The relevance of this task for the future is undoubted.

There is something remarkably optimistic in the unexpectedness of his seventieth birthday. Anyone who has recently met the silver-haired jubilee, hurrying through the streets of Sofia, or in a heartfelt conversation, among the villagers in Dragalevtsi or amidst the white expanses of his native mountains, has undoubtedly taken with him the impression of inexhaustible vitality and strong health. Anyone who has read the latest poems or has been in close contact with his poetry and fiction endeavors of recent years has become convinced that the poet Lamar enjoys not only physical vigor, but also enviable spiritual energy and youth. Even the most prejudiced seeker could not find in them the calmness, spiritual balance and calmness characteristic of the wise resignation of creative maturity.

Stoyan Karolev's new book "In the World of Prose" is one of the most meaningful events in our literary life in recent years. It can be passed over and underestimated only by someone who suffers from congenital aesthetic myopia or is gripped by attacks of progressive professional egocentrism. It reveals with utmost clarity the most joyful trends in the development of contemporary, dialectically enriched aesthetic thinking, capable of penetrating the specific spheres of verbal art, of discerning the uniqueness of various creative talents, of achieving the truth about the artistic completeness and functionality of various stylistic and genre phenomena, about the aesthetic existence of the individual work of art, of the artistic image and suggestion. "In the World of Prose" affirms the legitimate aspiration of today's literary researcher to enter the holy of holies" of authors and books without prejudice and pretense, without aesthetic ecstasy and "artistic exaltation," but with increased intellectual insight into real ideological and aesthetic values, with increased emotional responsiveness to the artistic atmosphere of literary facts. Indicative of the peculiar renaissance that many of the leading representatives of our theory and criticism have experienced in the last decade, this book also represents an event in the author's personal biography: it contains the happy fruits of an inspired creative maturity.