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At the end of October 1964, a scientific session was held at the Department of Linguistics, Literary Studies and Art Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences on the topic "Tradition and Innovation", dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the people's liberation. The session was opened with a short speech by Pantelei Zarev, who spoke about its significance. We are including the reports of Alexander Obretenov and Georgi Tsanev and some of the speeches made by collaborators of the Literary Institute.

Tradition and innovation. Two terms that hardly ever leave the pages of literary periodicals in socialist countries today. So much is explained about their relationship, so many disputes are waged around them - that many are probably tired of it already. "Amen to this banal topic" - you will hear some people say here and there. But literary life constantly - and sometimes too insistently - poses the banal topic.

There are hardly any brighter and more convincing arguments for revealing the essence of the issues under consideration about tradition and innovation than the problem of ideology in literature and art. Unfortunately, when talking about tradition and innovation, the emphasis is usually placed on the secondary, on the derivative, on issues of artistic form, even more limitedly - on the means of expression, and much less is revealed about the essence, change and development of the ideological content in art, which to a large extent determines the artistic form, means of expression, techniques, etc.

This is the title of Georgi Tsanev's new book. Compared to "Writers and Problems" (ed. 1961 and 1965) or the latest editions of "Pages from the History of Bulgarian Literature", "Tradition and Innovation" is not as complete, not as representative of the literary work of our prominent literary critic and historian, who turns seventy this year. However, it contains works - first of all, the study "Tradition and Innovation in Bulgarian Literature", as well as the essays on Nikola Furnadzhiev and Asen Raztsvetnikov - which, with their theoretical summaries and the persuasiveness of literary analysis, and with the breadth of literary erudition and the pathos of Marxist critical thought, appear among the best that Georgi Tsanev has left in the last two decades, among the best in our literary history and criticism of that time. He never stood as a dispassionate observer at his literary post, but always perceived the new in Soviet and our literary studies, boldly corrected his own views on the basis of his excellent knowledge of Bulgarian literature. Therefore, he gave his own solution to a number of current literary issues.

There are no other two problems so closely related and almost equivalent in aesthetics as modernity and innovation. Both begin with the ability to observe reality, to select and evaluate, and end with the technical techniques of measured speech. Undoubtedly, modernity is a broader category that includes innovation. It is simply implied and very often there is no need to talk about it, it is not necessary to emphasize it specifically. Emphasizing it through deliberate efforts often leads to artificiality and posturing in poetry. It is an elementary truth that true innovation has nothing to do with pretentiousness. Contrary to superficial impressions, it is not the external arrangement of the verse that determines the innovative essence of poetry. Discovery does not depend on meter and rhymes - it can be done with or without them. Although in practice avant-garde pursuits are more closely related to free verse, exceptions are not at all rare.