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Our dramatic authors in a number of their works reflected the new man in the context of modern life, of the construction of socialism. Our dramaturgy on a modern theme contained a number of socio-psychological and socio-critical elements. Its main feature was the denial of the then capitalist reality, the affirmation of the new that was coming. These works outlined the rapid development of socialist realism from the initial period after September 9 to the present day.

In its relatively long development, since 1842, when Iv. A. Bogorov published the first collection of Bulgarian folk songs and proverbs, Bulgarian folklore studies have achieved significant successes not only in terms of collecting and publishing folklore materials, but also in their research. However, one important gap, which until recently remained unfilled, was the absence of more significant comprehensive and generalizing works on Bulgarian written folk poetic creation, with the necessary scientific depth and competence. The reviews, which were placed in the past mainly in some textbooks on Bulgarian literature, such as Al. T. Balan in his "Bulgarian Literature" (1896) and others, very valuable for their time, today can no longer be fully used due to the often outdated and scientifically overcome views that are advocated in them, and also due to the significantly smaller amount of materials on which they are built. The prominent gap in our science of Bulgarian folk poetic creativity was largely filled in the past 1959 with the appearance of two photo-chronicle works of important importance, namely "Bulgarian Folk Songs" by Prof. Y. Ivanov (published by the Institute of Bulgarian Literature at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) and "Bulgarian Folklore" by Prof. P. Dinekov. Prof. P. Dinekov's book presents the first part of his comprehensive review of Bulgarian folklore, the second part of which is due to be published in the near future. Compared to what has been done in this field to date, it represents a very serious attempt to assess Bulgarian poetic folk art from the point of view of modern progressive science, by clarifying and criticizing all outdated explanations and concepts based mainly on the experience of Soviet folklore studies, which the author has carefully studied.

The paths by which a writer penetrates beyond the borders of his homeland are very different and complex. Having followed their winding paths, the artist often receives new dimensions from different eras and among different peoples, is "discovered by those who are not even aware of them in their time. There is something very characteristic of the fate of a writer in the way in which he is assimilated outside his homeland. Sometimes, having vividly expressed the trends of his time, having created a unique style and handwriting, the artist powerfully conquers the minds of his era, his work becomes a banner, a slogan, a platform, and often in the end - because the last stage of the rapid assimilation of a unique talent is almost always epigonism - and a literary fashion. Such is the fate of some great artists of the Western European classics of the last century (Byron, Schiller). There are also writers who remain almost undiscovered by their contemporaries, in order to measure their value from other eras or among other peoples. Such is the fate of Stenda Often literary fashion opens a green light for some unhealthy literary trends. The fame of such literary ephemera, the most characteristic example of which in our country is perhaps Przybyszewski, only testifies to the aesthetic level of famous circles during the era.

What is aesthetic?" - this is the question that begins the monograph of L. N. Stolovich "Aesthetics in Reality and in Art" (Moscow, 1959). "From the point of view of modern aesthetic science," the author writes, "those phenomena and objects of reality, those human abilities are characterized as aesthetic, which in one way or another are included in the special, special attitude of man to reality - the aesthetic attitude." As we see, a very general definition, the meaning of which is expressed in the fact that the aesthetic is understood as a special attitude. From this premise to a more comprehensive definition of the aesthetic, several directions are possible. Stolovich chose the one according to which the aesthetic attitude is determined by its object - the aesthetic properties of reality. They (beautiful, disgusting, ugly, tragic) exist objectively, independently of our will and our consciousness, although they are not outside of society and man. The author distinguishes himself from A. I. Burov, according to whom aesthetic qualities are not realized "without the perceiving subject."

"Radyanske literaturoznavstvo" ("Soviet Literary Studies") is a bimonthly magazine, an organ of the T. G. Shevchenko Institute of Literature at the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR and the Union of Ukrainian Writers. "Radyanske literaturoznavstvo" has been published since 1957. It is the peer of "Literary Thought". In nearly five years, the magazine has gained wide popularity, becoming a necessity for literary critics, teachers, students, and everyone interested in issues of literary studies. The magazine has attracted a large number of contributors from all over the country. Along with writers from Kiev, it also publishes lecturers from universities and pedagogical institutes in Lviv, Kharkov, Odessa, Kherson, Dnepropetrovsk, etc., teachers working in 130 different cities and villages of the republic, and contributors from abroad. On the pages of the magazine we find the names of prominent Ukrainian literary scholars, and alongside them the names of young, novice literary critics and historians. We will focus here on one anniversary of the magazine - the fourth, published in 1960. But since limiting ourselves to just one anniversary does not allow us to draw any conclusions about the nature of the magazine and the general directions of its development, we will refer to places and articles published in other anniversaries. At the same time, a more detailed examination of one of the anniversaries allows us to make the review more specific.

There are three masters of the short story in our literature: Vazov, Elin Pelin and Yovkov. How do they write? How are they made? "Is it possible?" and "All Souls' Day", "A Bulgarian Woman" and "Shibil", "Andreshko" and "Midnight Guest"? It is a banal truth to say that the question is very interesting and that it has a bearing on all aspects of a writer's work, not least of which is style. Practically, what is more interesting is that it is preceded by another question: where to begin to unravel the figurative fabric of a story in order to see how it is "made". Undoubtedly, a work of art is an organic whole - wherever you start, you will reach everything, you will encompass the whole. But each genre has its own specific structure, and when you take it into account, the work is made much easier. Alexei Tolstoy says that architecturally the short story should be built on the fifth and "but" (..., but...). And indeed, in Vazov - grandfather Yotso goes blind, but the liberation of Bulgaria gives him a second set of eyes; in Elin Pelin - the bailiff is preparing to rake the barn of the poor man Stoichko, but Andreshko plays the judge and saves his life; in Yovkov - Sali Yashar wants to do something, but he understands that "the cars he makes, do something". The formula is not only witty: it hits the heart of the short story as a genre - its structure, its plot-composition scheme. The short story takes the incident - the character - the problem at the moment when the incident occurs, the character changes, the problem is resolved - at the turning point, when one thing turns into another. Alexei Tolstoy's comma and the note express precisely this "contrapuntal" structure of the story. That is why the short story is eventful and when it is only psychology, epic and without a particular plot, it is conflictual, without being a drama: it gives the setting, illuminates the intersection, reveals the change. That is why, perhaps, in no other literary genre does the question - how the work is constructed - acquire such specific importance.

How does Vazov - this master painter of the visible world - paint what is invisible? How does he convey the soul movements of the characters and the atmosphere of the event, in other words - the lyrical-psychological filling of the story, in comparison with the other two narrators and especially with Elin Pelin? - In principle, in the same way: as a witness and observer. When the "soul" of the character, of the event or of the landscape needs to be revealed, the author takes the floor to describe and explain it. Naturally, before the author, the characters themselves do this, insofar as they are characterized by their actions and lines: Vazov is the master of lines and dialogue and would remain untouchable if Elin Pelin were not his equal rival in this respect. Both of them master the characterological possibilities of lines to perfection. But not all mental movements can receive adequate expression in the replica, not to mention the ideological-emotional, spiritual filling and meaning of the situations, actions, the moment, especially in the short story with its strictly defined possibilities. What and how much can characters like grandfather Yotso or grandmother Iliytsa, or Stancho and Stoilka, or Lisichkata say about themselves, even when they are Elin Pelinovi villagers? As for nature, objects and animals, they are silent at all. The author must help them. The question here is – how?

The Bulgarian communist Dimitar Gachev, who inherited the theoretical principle and irreconcilability of Blagoev, fully formed himself as an art critic and historian of aesthetics in the USSR. The period from 1930 to 1937 was particularly active for his development. After that, the cult of personality not only slowed down, but also tragically interrupted his creative activity. Gachev felt on his shoulders the impact of forces, essentially alien and hostile to socialism, which inflicted so many defeats not only in the political and economic, but also in the intellectual life of our society. But he remained faithful to communism, to the great Soviet homeland, until his last breath, he went away with the dream of building communism in Bulgaria. The 20th Congress of the USSR and the April Plenum in our country returned, among many others, the cultural values ​​that Gachev created to the treasury of socialist culture.

Tradition has forever linked the names of two prominent representatives of the Bulgarian revival - Paisius and Sophrony of Vrachanski. And not by chance. The Kotla priest Stoyko Vladislavov was the first to transcribe "History of Slavonic Bulgaria", the first to understand and implement as a writer and public figure the national and universal ideas of the Hilendar monk. In 1962, the 200th anniversary of the writing of "History of Slavonic Bulgaria" was celebrated - articles and studies were published in the periodical press and scientific publications that shed light on important moments in the work of the immortal revivalist. Just a few months later, a monograph on the life and creative path of Sophrony of Vrachanski appeared. Its author, the famous specialist in Old Bulgarian literature V. Sl. Kiselkov, has shown interest in Sophrony as a scientist and citizen, because, as he notes in the introduction to his work, he was born and raised "in the birthplace of Sophrony" (p. 4). Therefore, the tracing and interpretation of the facts is often warmed by a warm feeling for his native land, by reverence for its historical past, by a captivating enthusiasm for the work of notable Kotel residents. V. Sl. Kiselkov's aspiration to outline the era and activities of Sophrony as completely as possible, to challenge established concepts and propose new ones, has determined both the composition of the monograph and the volume of its individual parts. It is made up of four mutually complementary chapters: 1. Kotel; 2. From the cradle to the grave; 3. Writer's image; 4. Literary work.

A few years ago, a fellow villager of mine, a passionate hunter, took me hunting with him. But it was only towards evening, when we were returning, that he signaled that he had seen something and whispered to me to stop and be silent. He aimed at the telephone wires. Two turtledoves were huddled on them, as if contemplating the increasingly pale, crimson west. One of them flinched and unexpectedly quickly left its companion. The other did not even notice, remaining motionless. At that moment a roar came from the rifle. The bird flew up in some last effort and fell rapidly, almost vertically, to the ground. Even the poor and dry vegetation of the stubble hid it. When my friend brought back the still fluttering bird, with its eyes painfully closed, in a moment we both looked at its half-open beak with shame. My fellow villager immediately came to his senses, picked up the turtledove, and began to tell incredible hunting stories. He was obviously thinking about what had happened as much as his wife had about the hen after he had cut off the rough woodcutter's head. I listened absently and remembered that moment B And Emilian Stanev's story, when the shot-shot squeaking jug flew in the same way, and the forest hid it from his eyes in order to conceal a murder. It was clear to me that my companion saw nothing particularly wrong with what had just happened, this story no longer concerned him. And why did Emilian Stanev seem to be haunted by such memories, why did he want to free himself from someone's intrusive gaze, why did he always talk about... murder in such cases? Was it not because of our gullibility that we mistakenly accepted these stories as "hunting"?

The extremely interesting work of G. D. Gachev "Accelerated Development of Literature" gives us the opportunity to look at it and evaluate it in a broader perspective, not directly related to the problems of Bulgarian Renaissance literature. The author's main concept of accelerated development poses contemporary questions that have the prospect of becoming increasingly contemporary. Every new generation and every individual who has appeared in this world must undergo accelerated development in order to be able to perceive in a concise, abbreviated form the experience of humanity gained in its centuries-old development. That is why the author's concept is very relevant, fruitful and of great importance for those who work on the work of individual writers. For my personal work, for example, on M. Tchaikovsky's Sadyk Pasha, Gachev's book with the problems posed and solved in it is extremely useful. Because I too am faced with a vivid case of accelerated development. The ideological formation of Polish emigration to France in the 19th century poses this question with all its acuteness. Polish emigrants arrived in Paris - the most elevated cultural center of Europe at that time, from a feudal country, some even, like Tchaikovsky, from distant Ukraine, where in both everyday life and in the worldview of the people there is still too much of the folklore-epic stage of human development. And they must catch up at an accelerated pace with the level of the most advanced human thought in the fields of politics, sociology and literature, each proceeding in the perception of the new from his own unique personal experience and personal knowledge and understanding of the world, brought from his homeland.

Returning to Yovkov - after Vazov and Elin Pelin - always awakens a keen sense of his unique character as an artist. When we compare Vazov and Elin Pelin, it is natural to deal with similarities and differences, to speak of a natural step forward in the development of the short story. When we get to Yovkov, all this starts to sound too general and approximate. The step forward is present here too. But with him it is not only a step forward, but also a step "aside". The similarities and differences here turn out to be more indirect and deeper, precisely because they are intricately mediated by Yovkov's artistic individuality. Indeed, Yovkov also relied on Vazov - at least to the extent that Elin Pelin also relied on him. And Yovkov, although he writes stories about ten years after Elin Pelin, strictly speaking, has no other national school and no other heritage behind him, except the Vazovs, and no other example alongside him - except Elin Pelin. And yet Yovkov stubbornly, centimeter by centimeter, for twenty years in a row, breaks his artistic path further and further away from the Vazov-Elin Pelin highway. And the reader feels that the separate comparisons between them and him would yield even less than between Vazov and Elin Pelin, if they had not gone through the understanding of the whole; that before being decomposed into similarities and differences, - precisely Yovkov more than anyone else - must be felt in his peculiarly secluded, in comparison with the first Two, almost closed artistic system.

"If They Could Speak" perhaps more directly than any other of Yovkov's works confronts the reader with a peculiarity, mentioned several times recently as the "objectivity" of the depiction, of the verbal drawing. In fact, this so-called by us objectivity represents one of the aspects of the question of the structure and functions of the verbal image in Yovkov. The resolution that he gives it is as important as it is characteristically Yovkovian. And an analysis that has affected in one way or another the structure and composition of the work as a whole (the "macro-image") cannot fail to focus on the structure of the "micro-image" - of the individual linguistic image and its function in the whole. These are questions of the verbal fabric of the artistic work, taken from their specifically stylistic side. While the composition and the general structure of Yovkov's story undergoes a relatively more complex development, Yovkov's verbal pattern develops, so to speak, in an ascending line: this is the progressive unfolding of the same pictorial tendency from "Ovcharova's Complaint" to "If They Could Talk". The path is long - from 1910 to 1936 - but straight; the difference is enormous, but natural and inevitable.

Symbolism still remains one of the most unexplored areas of our literary history. The reasons for this are many and of the most diverse nature. Bourgeois science cannot embrace this phenomenon in perspective and retrospectively - it lacked the historical distance, and its very approach could hardly ensure the desired success. In the period of the cult of personality, the inertia of crude sociological simplistic thinking for a long time kept our literary science captive to the setting, the essence of which was reduced to the statement that symbolism was one of the ideological disguises of the reactionary bourgeoisie. Alleged vices were exposed, real and undeniable virtues were kept silent. And since there was a time when exposing the openly reactionary in science and art was considered almost an outdated taste, and the arrows in our criticism were aimed at "disguised" idealism, "disguised" fideism, etc., then it seemed fashionable to criticize symbolism as well.

The Great October Revolution not only changed the public consciousness, thinking and spirituality of millions of people in the world, but also created for them a clear and precise answer to the agonizing question of a way out of capitalist slavery. The victory of October became a worldview, a significant page in history, a complete system of ideas and feelings, of perception of life phenomena.

Soviet folklore studies have accumulated rich research material. The vast land of the victorious October has revealed interesting aspects of the spiritual culture of a number of nationalities and tribes, which have shed new light on folk poetic creativity. The numerous works published with folklore materials and monographic studies have greatly facilitated the theoretical studies of Soviet scientists, enriched their knowledge and ideas about the origin, character and essence of folklore. Recently, several works on the aesthetics of folklore have also appeared.

In the history of literature, the period of Romanticism occupies an important place as a specific artistic method for reflecting reality. In literary theory, disputes are still being conducted to this day, studies are being conducted on the characteristic features and romantic forms of reflection and artistic generalization. This emphasized interest in Romanticism stems from the fact that it covers an interesting period in the development of public thought, where the views, dreams and aspirations of progressive people for the transformation of the world, for national liberation from centuries-old oppression intersect, a period that reflected both on the economy and on philosophy and all branches of art - literature, painting, music. In recent years, interesting monographs on Romanticism and its artistic method have appeared in Soviet literary theory by researchers such as Elistratova, Reizov, Sarinyan, etc. Among them is the work of the Armenian scholar S. Sarinyan - "Armenian Romanticism".

Dimcho Debelyanov established himself in our poetry as the continuator of a poetic tradition, established through the work of Vazov, Pencho Slaveykov, Yavorov, Kiril Hristov. At the time when Debelyanov began his career as a poet, poems were written in the usual rhythms of the syllabic system. Vazov had already imposed it and had used all its rhythmic schemes, trying not to go beyond their framework. He had, to a certain extent, "engraved the word in the step". Most of the poets of that time did not seem to feel that the accepted rhythmic schemes could be diversified. We leave aside, of course, Yavorov, who was a true innovator in terms of the technique of verse. He not only did not allow the usual stress of the word to be changed because of its place in the verse, nor did he allow it to be damaged, but he was the first to consciously and with a swing begin to diversify the rhythm of his verse and made the rhythmic movement an expression of the deepest inner content. Yavorov pointed out the entire musical wealth of Bulgarian poetic speech and the possibilities for the rhythmic refreshment of the syllabic system. The path that D. Debelyanov bravely set out on had already been paved. Debelyanov's creative period closed between the years 1906-1916. This was the time when in our country a struggle was waged in poetry against realism, accepted as obsolete, and when the belated echoes of French symbolism is making its way.

As often happens in the history of our new culture, we are in a paradoxical situation: we declare ourselves the heirs of the classical Bulgarian culture of the Middle Ages, the center of Slavic culture in general for certain historical periods, but we do not know it well. We are simply proud of the alphabet and old literature, we use catchphrases to prove that in the history of human culture we did not exist yesterday, and in our veins there is something of the blue blood of ancient cultural dynasties. But what do we know about Old Bulgarian literature? At school we learned about Presbyter Kozma, who "delivered some kind of discourse against the Bogomils (he was a reactionary and an obscurantist, because the Bogomils are progressive), and about Chernorizets Hrabar (he wrote something about the features and letters). Scientists argue about him whether he was not Tsar Simeon (this somewhat influenced our imagination - a great king, brilliant like Solomon, ruler of nations, but he puts on black hair and writes some writings in dark cells!). But in general, there is hardly a more boring subject at school. At university we learn the conjugations of verbs, we even try to spell the letters from some gospel (those terrible letters!). That is, so to speak, all our education on Old Bulgarian literature. We are so uninterested in it that we have even thrown out everything that reminds us of the Old Bulgarian language from spelling and orthography. We want to say, what do we care about various Nosovk and Ierov, there is no such thing in our modern language, let's leave them to the priests and philologists; our culture is folk, democratic, everyone should have easy access to it, it would be a manifestation of conservatism to treat a dead language and incomprehensible letters with care, even if our own history is reflected in this language and these letters!

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.