Спомени

The memory of Krum Velkov takes me back to the distant 1932, when I was secretary of the Sofia organization of the Union of Labor Writers. (There were no other organizations in the country like this union, but we had conceived them as groups of young literary cadres, and therefore in the "center" we had a "central leadership" and a "Sofia organization".) We had a meeting in one of the rooms of the "Maika" school (behind the Courthouse). I was just calling on the comrades to sit down and begin the agenda, when Todor Pavlov came to me, to the rostrum, with an unknown younger man. "Meet Keshish Parvan," said uncle Todor to me. I remembered this name from someone who had spoken under this pseudonym in Bakal's magazine "Nov Pat" in 1924-1925. It turned out that Keshish Parvan was Krum Velkov from Pernik, who after being expelled from high school worked as a locksmith and machinist and participated in the September Uprising in 1923 in the city of Preslav. He had written a novel about this uprising and was now carrying it - on the recommendation of Todor Pavlov, we, the then communist writers from the active ranks of the literary front, had to read it and find a way to publish it. I read it in the next few days, Georgi Karaslavov and other comrades read it, and we all agreed that the novel was very good. We decided to publish it as a book issue of our newspaper "RLF".

Georgi P. Stamatov, born in Russia and spending the first thirteen years of his childhood there, then lived in Bulgaria for 55 years, to which are added another five years as a student in Switzerland. After studying at the Military School, his short service as an officer and his studies in law, from 1902 onwards Stamatov became a judge and then more fruitfully displayed his writing talent. He served in Sofia, Plovdiv, Tran and for the longest time in Kyustendil. His official career as a judge in the Kyustendil District Court, extracted from the court archives, is as follows: from August 1, 1905 to September 31, 1907, from February 1, 1908 to January 31, 1911, from March 1, 1914 to July 31, 1919, and from October 1, 1919 to May 31, 1921.

I met him for the first time in the fall of 1928. The descendant of Lyuben Karavelov had just returned from abroad, from emigration. Tall, with his head slightly bowed between his asymmetrically raised shoulders, the figure of this man radiated intransigence, the valor of the unyielding. When he spoke calmly, a bribing childish gullibility and kindness flowed from his gaze. But if he happened to switch to polemics and defend his faith in the people and their right to freedom and human happiness, arrows of his revolutionary conviction would fly from his eyes. His gesture was angular and dramatic, saturated with a hidden inner tragedy, intertwined with boundless feeling for the poor, for the suffering. The sonority of his voice carried the excitement of his noble heart, the impulses of his impetuous thoughts, the accent of his charming devotion as a faithful proletarian son... A sworn devotion that consciously and unwaveringly came true over time in that tragic end of Nikolai Khrelkov, which became a measure of his moral and political stature as a communist citizen.

I saw him for the first time when I started working at the Institute of Literature. He was a member of the Scientific Council of the institute. He had come with Konstantin Petkanov to a meeting. I was impressed by the poet's spiritualized face, his sad gaze, which radiated such tenderness and nobility. At that time, the collection of studies on Ivan Vazov was being prepared intensively, on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of his birth. Nikolay Liliev participated in the editorial board. And a year before that, a collection of memories of Vazov was published, edited only by Liliev. He had to search for and collect the materials, constantly urging the authors to submit them. This task was not at all easy. Later, from the archive of Elin Pelin at the Institute of Literature, a postcard written in humorous verses came across, in which Liliev asks the great writer to send him his memories of Vazov. This witty parody of Vaz's poem "Kings Mark" shows how much the collection of memories tormented him. Since the letter has been lost, I will quote it approximately, from memory:

"Procrustean bed" - I can't find another more apt image to characterize the monstrous work of police censorship during the time of fascism in our country. Indeed, this censorship did not cut off arms and legs, did not physically mutilate, as the legendary Procrustes did (other organs of the Police Directorate were engaged in this), but it castrated and mutilated ideas and concepts, and this procedure was much more cruel, it inflicted much greater damage. Even in the Christian Gospel it is said: "And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the spirit, for more terrible are those who kill both body and soul at the same time." I remember once in a private conversation one of the former heads of censorship, E. K. (now deceased), exclaimed with cynical frankness:

The First World War had already ended when, in mid-1919, I took off the epaulette of a hastily made second lieutenant. Then, during this unfortunate war, which brought so much suffering and deprivation to the people, from the so-called "school for reserve second lieutenants" in Knyazhevo, after a few months of training, candidate officers emerged, who were immediately sent to the fronts and to the rearguard. From Ruse, where I was demobilized, in semi-civilian clothes, I found myself in Sofia to enroll in university. In Sofia, the aftereffects of the war that ended catastrophically for Bulgaria were keenly felt. Poverty in material life, heartbreak and despair in spiritual life! The people reacted strongly, possessed by anger against those responsible for the catastrophe. Foreign troops were marching through the streets of the capital, the French general Chrétien was in charge of the country... The national poet Ivan Vazov had published a small collection of poems under the title "It Will Not Perish!" to encourage his people, to bring serenity to their deeply troubled souls, to restore their faith in more glorious days:

I have heard that Grandpa Racho's father was also a coppersmith. He went around the villages repairing coppersmiths and took his son Racho with him. When the son later came to Tarnovo, he was already an orphan - without a father and mother. The conspirators of the Velcho Conspiracy gathered in the house of Racho Kazandzhiata. The neighborhood had already begun to talk about these gatherings. Grandma Todora shouted to her husband: - What do you think? We have so many children. Don't gather here anymore! People are already starting to talk... It was Sunday. Racho Kazandzhiata, together with his wife and children, were at church. Their servant ran up to tell them that they were looking for the conspirators. Grandpa Racho rode his horse and left the city. On the way, he met Velcho, who was coming to Tarnovo from his braiding shop at the mouth. Racho told him that they were looking for them and advised him to return, but Velcho said: "Whatever happens, I will go to Tarnovo" - and continued on his way.

When we moved to Sofia, I often went to the Slaveykovs' in the old house on the square. We played with Pencho's little sister, Penka. He was already sick. I listened to him with difficulty, how he could barely speak. When he started walking with a cane, he came home often. Then I got married. He still visited us often. For a long time I knew nothing about his feelings for me. My mother-in-law, who had come from Sliven, once said to me: - This man comes very often. It seems that he loves you very much. - Of course he loves me, he is my cousin, - I replied. One day he brought me his collection "Mom's Tears" and told me that it was dedicated to me. I thanked him.

Kostenets, July 30, 1951 Georgi Konstantinov In Moscow, where he was sent for treatment, Assen Raztsvetnikov died of blood cancer... Last year he lived here, near me, for a whole month. From here, Kamen Zidarov, then director of the National Theater, took him to the "Dr. Racho Angelov" hospital to the famous Dr. Tsonchev... (Kamen Zidarov was born in Draganovo and he and Assen loved each other very much.) I had known Assen Raztsvetnikov since 1922. He had completed several semesters of Slavic philology and literature when I enrolled, and he was already threatening to leave philology because he found it boringly dry and transfer to the Faculty of Law. He wrote and published poems that did not stand out with any special qualities. I knew him better as a student - Assen Kolarov - and as a passionate communist. For a long time, we both sat on the same bench.

In 1922, the twenty-year-old Kazi published his first book under the title "The Blue Chrysanthemum". Svetoslav Minkov published his first book with Dimir Polyanov, born three years earlier. He debuted alongside the then-young Vla. The latter's collection of short stories was entitled "Death". Not long after, their names appeared on the pages of the magazine "Zlatoroga", around which some of the most famous writers of the time were grouped. Minkov's friends liked to joke about the title of his book, asking him in which garden he had seen a "blue chrysanthemum", when chrysanthemums are usually yellow and white. Of course, the joke did not irritate or anger Minkov, he accepted the tease with that typical Minkov smile, in which there was both shyness and mystery. He did not answer with words, he was by nature silent, I would even say withdrawn into himself. In those years, Minkov still loved meetings in the shady Sofia pubs, and there among friends, in the haze of tobacco smoke, in front of a glass of wine, he became talkative and spoke, rather told things, sometimes very bizarre, incredible, in which he seemed to believe, because what he said had an accent of faith, of conviction. But he was funny.

They had pointed it out to me. And I already knew who Teodor Trayanov was. I wanted to meet him. This happened after a long trip of mine around the country giving talks about Rabindranath Tagore. It was in May 1925. The tragedy of the April events had darkened the people - only two years after the June 9 coup and the September anti-fascist popular uprising. Morning. In front of the Tsar Osvoboditel cafe, I was waiting for my friend Ivan Rachev. He had made my trip easier as a lecturer. The Sunday morning in May had filled the boulevard with people. In the courtyard of the Military Club, the brass band of the Guards Regiment was playing with its conductor, Maestro Georgi Atanasov. And so Teodor Trayanov walked from the club to the cafe. He was alone. His gait was that of a thoughtful man - slow. When he walked, he used a cane. In his ashy checked suit, he was a medium-sized and slender man, with dark brown hair and a slightly swarthy face, an aquiline nose and a high forehead over thick eyebrows that overshadowed his large, dark eyes. When he crossed Rakovski and stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the cafe, I stopped him and turned to him with my desire to meet him. He stopped, pleasantly surprised. When we stepped aside so as not to disturb passersby, he wanted to know where I was from, what had brought me to Sofia "in these anxious days." My youthful interests in Rabindranath Tagore were not foreign to him. And in order to continue our conversation, Teodor Trayanov invited me for coffee. His first visitors were already sitting here and there in the cafe, among whom were his acquaintances. He wanted us to be at a separate table, alone. He ordered coffees. Before they could even be served, he put the lid on. Here I sat as if I had known him for a long time: his direct tone in the conversation predisposed and brought an intimacy that did not leave my friendship and meetings with him until the end of his life. I remember - when he learned that I was from northeastern Bulgaria, in the precincts of Dobrudzha, his discharge transferred to a characteristic of the national-typical of that region, about the psychology of the people there - the Bulgarian woman and the Bulgarian man ... About the past of that part of our land, on which the first Bulgarian state was created, about an equal Dobrudzha ... When I reached to get up, Teodor Trayanov did not hesitate to say smiling, with the nobility of a rarely hospitable person, devoid of the banal intellectual arrogance: - Since you are in Sofia, I want you to call me. I am pleased that we met. At that moment, another person came and sat at his table, who, as it turned out, was his friend.