правда

In the tense days when, for the second time after the liberation, Hainboaz entered our history with a different kind of fame, I was one of those who set out for the old Balkans to experience the birth of the new up close and to refresh themselves with the working enthusiasm of the twenty-year-olds. And since the nature of my literary expression does not allow me to recreate what I had experienced through the means of artistic expression, I had to justify my trip to the public through another type of cultural work. For more than ten days, I went around the Youth Brigades looking for those skilled in fiction, with the intention of providing them with creative assistance and at the same time establishing closer contact with the people. And indeed, we read their works, talked, argued. Thus, from my tour, which some friends mockingly called a "poet hunt," I took away many hopes and several handwritten pages of poems in which a certain literary gift was evident. A few weeks later, in a report about the experience, I found an opportunity to share my impressions with the readers and to say that not only new people were growing up in Hainboaz, but also new poets who carried within them something of the tension of the era "... I am convinced," I wrote, "that it is precisely this youth - still clumsy, still inexperienced - that will renew our country and our artistic creativity. It will create art in which the enthusiasm for work, love for the simple man, the creator of values, love for the homeland will pulsate - art that will combine in an inseparable unity the living world of objects and great ideas, great dreams for the future". And in order to point out the sprouts of a fresh imagery that promised something unsaid, I cited some of the brigadier's poems of a then unknown poet whom I had met by chance. Not long after, the author of these poems began to collaborate with our periodical, only to recently emerge as one of the sure hopes of our contemporary lyric poetry. Thus, in our fiction, as I expected, the name I had pronounced in my report, the name Ivan Radoe in...

Populist ideas penetrated Bulgarian literature in the late 1980s and mainly in the 1990s. Under the influence of the populist ideology, adopted by Russian public figures and populist writers, some writers created works that make up our populist literature. This literature is limited in scope and not particularly rich in the variety of genres, ideas and images. There are not always strictly defined "pure" populist frameworks. And with the gradual experience of populist ideas in the first decade of the new century, it ceases to be a topical issue in our literary reality. Therefore, the term "populist literature" should be accepted and understood quite conditionally and with reservations. The important thing is that the works of populist writers excited contemporaries. Created in that era when the overall national appearance of our post-liberation realistic literature was taking shape, they diversified its ideological and aesthetic wealth, contributing to the strengthening of democracy and humanism within it.

In his new book with the above title, Zhelyu Avdzhiev examines from Marxist-Leninist positions the aesthetic originality and place of populism and populist literature in the development of Bulgarian literature. Having correctly grasped the specifics of this characteristic phenomenon, the author invests enough energy to characterize it comprehensively and to point out its previously unexposed features, to present its most important representatives in a new light. In our country, there have been no deliberate discussions on the issues of the essence of populist literature, although these issues have interested many literary scholars, as a result of which they have been quite clarified and a considerable amount of literature has accumulated. In the work under consideration, however, the problems arising around the character and essence of populist literature are analyzed for the first time in such detail and exhaustively in a separate, independent monographic study. Until now, we have not had a comprehensive literary-historical study in which to examine the original character, specific development and unique essence of populist literature in Bulgaria. The work under consideration is precisely such a study, in which the author has set himself the task of thoroughly studying this literature, and in a newer direction.

A wide library hall in the House of Culture. The left side is occupied by shelves with books, carelessly stacked in various positions. On the right - wide windows that cover the entire wall and make the hall bright and conducive to peace and reflection. In the corner, a ceiling-high philodendron, whose wide leaves seem to have consciously turned towards the sun to remind them of their distant tropical homeland. At an oblong table, the two opponents sit and leaf through books and magazines. They have left the neighboring hall, where a report on poetry is being read. Yankov. (With a smile). We are completely calm here. No one will disturb our conversation. As you know, writers are afraid of the word "bibliotheca". For them, it is something like a book museum, a tomb of names worthy of respect, but suffocated by literary incense. Gorano v. (With bitterness). How easily a writer can fall behind the times! His era opens its doors wide, and he has grabbed hold of some dogma and clings to it like a blind man to a stick! I recently came across the court case of Giordano Bruno before the court of the Inquisition. As a faithful son of the Catholic Church, Bruno recognizes the dogma of the "Trinity of God", recognizes it "a priori", as a verbal exercise, but, he says, it has nothing to do with the infinity of the universe and the innumerability of the worlds". He calls the holy fathers "a constellation of pedants who, with their ignorance, arrogance and rudeness, would drive Job himself out of patience". Scholasticism is for him a "shell for souls", instead of a "grain of knowledge". Yankov. (Laughs). What is to be done! The great man is always ahead of his time. Goranov. No. There is something else here. Such is pedantic thought. It is lazy, sectarian, and lacks flight. That is why I divide writers into two types: sectarians and artists, i.e. creators. Sectarians cannot be creators because of their sectarianism, they lag behind in their development, they arrive at the airport of history when the jet machine of time has long since taken off.

Georgi Markov's new book presents the author to us as a well-oriented literary critic, who makes conscious and in-depth efforts to reveal the specific laws of literary creativity, to penetrate the secrets of artistic mastery, into the world of the writer. The fruit of theoretical thinking, the book has a close proximity to the sphere of art. It does not give abstract logical interpretations and analyses, but rather approaches them concretely, in connection with the artistic features of literary works. The author's growth is evident. 1 G. Markov, Life Truth and Artistic Truth, ed. Narodno Prosveta, Sofia, 1968. A few years ago he published the book "Questions of Literary Analysis". If we compare it with the current one, we will see many common problems and at the same time - a big difference in their development. A manifest aspiration towards a complex research approach, towards a modern scientific level. Georgi Markov's theoretical interests are directed primarily towards the problems of ideology and artistic analysis, towards revealing the complex relations between literature and reality. These issues, which have a fundamentally important methodological significance for clarifying the essence of artistic creativity, have always been little developed so far, and there are many unresolved problems in connection with them. In the past, a considerable tribute was paid in this area to schematism and simplification, to vulgar sociology. To this day, many theorists are often satisfied only with general definitions and formulations, without detailing and arguing in essence. However, in his new book, G. Markov approaches the problems from different aspects, seeks the root causes of the phenomena, connects theoretical issues with examples from various literary works, mainly by Bulgarian poets and writers.