история

In this article we will not talk about the different types of causes that can lead to a tragic outcome, we will not talk about the tragedy of man in his struggle with nature or in some private collisions (unrequited love, etc.). Here we are interested in the highest form of the tragic, which can be conditionally called historical-tragic. We use this term not in the sense of historical and factual reliability, but to indicate that form of the tragic (and in art) that springs from the real historical process as a product of this process. When we talk about the tragic here, we mean precisely this form of it.

Recently, the first volume of the four-volume Marxist "History of Bulgarian Literature" under preparation was discussed at the Literary Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.1 The volume under discussion covers our literary and historical development from the emergence of old Bulgarian literature to Paisii Hilendarski. This scientific work is the fruit of the systematic efforts of a team of authors: Petar Dinekov, Emil Georgiev, Velcho Velchev, Ivan Duychev, Bonyu St. Angelov and Kuyu Kuev. It should be noted at the outset that all specialists and the entire institute staff greeted the first volume with marked interest, which is why its six-day discussion turned into a truly creative discussion dedicated to the characteristic problems associated with the specific features of our old literature. A serious conversation took place about the appearance, methodology, national identity, literary aesthetic essence, stylistic features, artistic criteria, literary movements and schools and all the distinctive features of our ancient centuries-old literature and culture. Almost all those who spoke expressed their views on certain aspects of this rich Bulgarian literature, made high demands on the authors' collective, gave interesting recommendations, defended familiar theses or presented new original hypotheses...

Like any science, literary history "is not only a system of concepts (categories, laws). Science is always at the same time a method of knowledge. It is always not only already achieved knowledge, but also knowledge-process, knowledge-aspiration, knowledge arising from practice... 1 As for the subject of literary history, its system, the question is relatively clear - this is (generally speaking) our literary heritage. And insofar as disputes are still being waged here whether a given third-rate writer or a completely insignificant work should be included in it - then in essence these are again disputes about the method, not about the system, since in its conclusions and laws it only consolidates the results of the method. While the system is the conservative, restraining side in the process of knowledge, the method is the revolutionary, creative one. It moves science forward, it opens up new paths for it. That is precisely why now, when our literary studies - as well as all sociological sciences - are faced with new, grandiose tasks in connection with the upbringing of the new man, the man of communism, the question of method becomes so important. In fact, this is a question of the future of literary history, of its transformation into an effective, active social force. Method is an eternal movement - despite its relative definiteness, it is constantly changing and developing in order to meet the new needs, the new tasks that modernity sets before literary history. That is why the question of sociology and dogmatism in literary criticism did not arise by chance. The acute form in which it was posed is a reflection of the sharp need for a radical transformation of our literary science in order to be able to respond to its new tasks.

The Institute of Literature at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences has already begun publishing the four-volume "History of Bulgarian Literature". The management of the institute had been preparing for this important and responsible work for many years. It carried out a great deal of preparatory work. After discussion and broad debate, a general periodization of our literature was adopted based on important and essential features, the characteristics of the socio-economic formations known in historical development, their determining impact on ideology, and through the ideological atmosphere on artistic creativity, as well as the internal laws of literary development" (10). The history of Bulgarian literature is divided into three main periods: 1. Old Bulgarian literature - from the 9th century to the middle of the 18th century (the writing of "Slavonic-Bulgarian History" by hieromonk Paisii of Hilendar); 2. New Bulgarian literature - from the middle of the 18th century to 9. IX. 1944, divided into two subperiods: a. Literature of the Revival - from the middle of the 18th century to 1878; b. Literature from the Liberation to 9. IX. 1944; 3. Literature during the era of the construction of socialism - from 9. IX. 1944 to the present day (10). "History of Bulgarian Literature" will be published in four volumes: one volume for the first and third periods, and two volumes for the second period - one for each subsection.

The ever-increasing differentiation and narrow specialization of the various branches of knowledge is a well-known and widely recognized fact today. Among the literary-philological scientific disciplines - clearly separated from the so-called "textual criticism" and paleography - textology already has its own independent scientific subject. At present - and especially that part of it that studies the monuments of medieval literature - it is not only an "applied discipline", but a foundation on which the precise observations and final results of literary history are built. From this fruitful starting point, all the textological assessments of the famous Soviet literary historian-medievalist D. S. Likhachev were made in his new voluminous book, entitled "Textology" - the first systematic exposition in the USSR of textological problems as a new part of modern philology.

Georgi Gachev's book with the unattractive title "Accelerated Development of Literature" is, for me, the most attractive fruit of Bulgarian studies outside our borders. In it, Gachev demonstrates great advantages over his colleagues at home and abroad, his efforts are intertwined with some of the latest searches in contemporary literary studies. Relying on the brilliant tradition of Russian comparative literary studies and the contemporary achievements of Marxist literary theory, he makes almost the first attempt at a theoretical history of Bulgarian literature in one of the important periods of its development. Despite the complex, abstract-theoretical formulation of the questions and the purely rationalistic pathos in resolving them, the book bears a clear imprint of the researcher's personality, his spiritual searches and problems. You have to be Bulgarian for the tragic vicissitudes of our national cultural development, the fate of these figures distant in history, the weaknesses and discontinuities to arouse such fascination in you. of tradition. In general, to feel within oneself this thirst and longing for tradition, for supporting and stable forms. You have to be a foreigner to be able to look from the side, to have lived with other cultures, to be blinded by the astonishing paradoxes of a literature, the unexpected combinations, the tragicomic anachronisms and even more unexpected appropriations. Gachev has taken a voluntary and noble risk - to find the laws of a delayed and therefore accelerated cultural development, to discover the motives driving it, natural tendencies in an unnatural development. He undertakes his risky experiment on a period in the history of our literature - the end of the 18th and the first half of the 19th century - which as much complicates as it eases his task. The difficulty comes from the fact that, due to its nature, this literature knows nothing about itself, in it criticism, programs, aesthetic platforms are absent. In many respects this is not literature itself, but culture in the broadest sense of the word. With rare exceptions, its written monuments are far less interesting than the vital and spiritual adventures of their creators. In these written monuments, the creators are reflected palely and sluggishly. The difficulties are also increased by the fact that until now this period of our literary development has aroused and arouses factual, empirical interest in researchers. In our country, there is no theoretical interest in key periods, genres, trends and problems of literary development, and Gachev's work was prepared only from the factual side. Perhaps that is why for many it was a surprise, almost an unauthorized attempt and unnecessary complication.

"For us, the Bulgarians, the Hieromonk and Pro-Igumen Paisius of Hilendar is a national pride." This high and in a sense new assessment of the first Bulgarian Revivalist, sounded by the illegal radio station "Hristo Botev" during the armed anti-fascist struggle, was an assessment not only of the revolutionary working class and the Communist Party, but also of our entire progressive society, of the working people heroically fighting against fascism and capitalism. That is why, after the victory of the socialist revolution in our country, Paisius of Hilendar attracted the strong attention of many literary critics, historians, philosophers - T. Pavlov, Zh. Natan, D. Kosev, P. Dinekov, P. Zarev, Em. Georgiev, V. Velchev, Hr. Hristov, Vl. Topencharov, B. St. Angelov, etc. Some foreign (mainly Soviet and Italian) scholars also showed special interest in his personality and work - A. N. Robinson, G. D. Gachev, R. Picchio, etc. In response to accumulated misconceptions on the part of biased bourgeois scholars in the past, the problem of Paisius' ideology naturally turned out to be the most relevant now. In connection with this problem and to a large extent as subordinate to it, the questions of the era, of the socio-economic, political, and cultural state of the Bulgarian people in the 18th century, as well as the questions of the domestic literary sources of "Slavic-Bulgarian History" were thrown into a new, broader, Marxist-Leninist study.

From 1927, when the prominent Bulgarian literary scholar Boyan Penev virtually completed his voluminous "History of New Bulgarian Literature" in the form of university lectures, later systematized and published, to the publication of the second volume of the academic history of Bulgarian literature, four decades passed. Even before the printing of B. Penev's History, many issues of Bulgarian Renaissance literature had been studied, but it was the first and most complete scientific work that comprehensively reflected the literary development of the Bulgarian people from the appearance of "Slavonic-Bulgarian History" to the inspired poetry of Hristo Botev. The long period after its publication was filled with a number of new studies, some of which bear the stamp of original, in-depth scientific research. They shed light on individual aspects of the Bulgarian literary revival, the work of writers and men of letters of varying importance, as well as more specific problems related to the development of the periodical press, school work, pedagogical literature, folklore or the main literary genres, methods and trends. Even before September 9, 1944, very significant studies of a more general nature appeared, which further developed some of Dimitar Blagoev's ideas about the nature of the Bulgarian Revival, subjected certain bourgeois-idealist views and concepts to fundamental criticism, and, in accordance with the Marxist methodology of their authors, revealed in New Light the literary and social work of a number of writers.

In Bulgarian literary and historical science after 1944, the question of the development of our literary theory and criticism is not new, it has not just arisen. As a research task, this question has been raised more than once and not by one or two Bulgarian literary historians. For various reasons, however, no work has been done in this direction. There are too few researchers who have occasionally paid attention to one or another moment in the history of Bulgarian literary criticism, theory and science. The only more systematic and comprehensive studies that have been published so far belong to Georgi Dimov, who works mainly in this scientific field.

Our historical fiction underwent qualitative and quantitative changes after the people's victory on September 9, 1944. It became a leading genre in our contemporary literature and rose to previously unknown heights. Following the sound realistic traditions, carried out by such masters of the artistic word as Ivan Vazov, Zahari Stoyanov and Stoyan Zagorchinov, contemporary authors of historical works assess and make sense of the past through their contemporary understandings, seek in it similarities with our time, fight for the complete triumph of socialist ideals. The development of the historical theme throughout the entire twenty-five-year period yielded rich and fruitful results, and for this, of course, there are profound objective-historical and aesthetic-literary reasons. The new time imposed the need for a new, Marxist reassessment of the historical past, especially of the recent revolutionary events. Thus were born some of the most significant works of our contemporary literature: the historical tetralogy of Dimitar Talev, "Ordinary People" by Georgi Karaslavov, "Ivan Kondarev" by Emilian Stanev... all large, widely developed reflections of life that summarize the panorama of a given historical era, introduce its regularities, trace the trends of social development through the development of bright individual human destinies and deeply dramatic life situations, and solve contemporary ideological-educational and literary-aesthetic tasks. It is in this area of ​​our fiction that the artistic achievements, achieved thanks to the unlimited possibilities that the method of socialist realism provides to contemporary artists, are most obvious. They possess the surest compass for penetrating the dark depths of the past, for understanding the hidden meaning of historical events: a harmonious and vital philosophical system that organizes and interprets the artistic material, spiritualizing it with deep contemporary thought. At no other time have Bulgarian authors of historical works been so close to the tasks of today, to the spiritual needs of modern man. In no other period of the development of Bulgarian literary prose have so many and so significant works on historical themes been created. It is difficult to outline even the most cursory individual characteristics of the galaxy of historical contemporary authors, to reveal the originality of their writings, of the original interpretation of historical events and characters - so rich is their diversity.