Отговори

Question: How should we understand the concept of realism? Is it possible, and to what extent, to truthfully reflect reality in works of art belonging to other art movements? Answer: By realism, I understand the creative method and movement that formed under certain historical conditions and changed significantly during different historical periods. It seems to me, as well as to a number of scholars, that realism in Western Europe first emerged during the Renaissance, finding its most powerful expression in the works of Shakespeare. One of the fundamental distinguishing features of realism lies in its unique approach to the creation of a typical character. By freeing itself from mythological ideas about human personality and will, realism came to depict character in its deepest individualization, in its self-development. Whereas in previous eras, literature, in creating characters, proceeded from previously "given" aesthetic norms that determined for themselves the ideal, the sublime, or the ugly.

What poems did I write before becoming fascinated with symbolism? What was my youthful poetry like? Like every beginning poet (1903–1904), I had not one but several notebooks filled with poems. These were poems in the spirit of folk heroism, written under the influence of Botev, Vazov, and P. R. Slaveykov. I was able to restore a small part of them in the 1954 collection Poems. In 1905, I moved from Plovdiv to Sofia with the intention of studying and supporting myself with my own work. I stayed with a classmate I knew, who later took these poems with him, and for a long time I saw some of them printed in provincial newspapers under his name. In 1905, I was greatly impressed by Pushkin's poem "Vechny Oleg" in Pencho Slaveykov's translation. Pushkin and Lermontov became my favorite poets. Their poetry was of such high quality that it could not be imitated. I began to translate it, clumsily at first. In 1907, I read my translation of Lermontov's "The Demon" to a student audience. The impression was encouraging. I usually translated Pushkin and Lermontov under difficult circumstances (in prison, at the front, in hospital, in exile), with a feeling of love and gratitude for their genius. This raises the question: why did I not remain faithful to my love for the poetry of Pushkin and Lermontov? How can my enthusiasm for symbolism, shared by other Bulgarian poets of that period (1905-1915), be explained?