теория

The life of a genius is not measured by the average duration of human existence. Every passing day expands the boundaries of his immortality. The works of contemporaries give us the opportunity to better understand the greatness of genius. Genius is contemporary even after millennia. But one is the contemporaneity of Aristotle, another of Shakespeare, a third - of Marx. And hardly has the history of mankind known such a complete manifestation of Man with a capital letter, such penetration into the depths of the future, without leaving the real basis of the present, as was manifested in the work and personality of Lenin. 90 years have passed since his birth and only 36 years since his death, and the ideas of Leninism, the ideas of communism are increasingly becoming ideas of all working humanity, marking the path to the future.

Having become acquainted with the article by Ya. E. Elsberg "Scholastic Concepts", published as a discussion in issue 1 of the journal "Questions of Philosophy" of the current year, the reader cannot help but ask: what, exactly, did the author want to prove with this article? What general epistemological and special aesthetic position does the author of the article take? The article is directed against the "scholastic concepts" of L. N. Stolovich in his new book "Aesthetics in Reality and in Art" (Gospolitizdat, 1959). It goes without saying that there is nothing unacceptable or incorrect in the fact that one Soviet author discusses with another author such an extremely important general epistemological and special aesthetic question. However, from what positions does Ya. E. Elsberg lead this discussion? From what positions does he criticize the "scholastic concepts" of his opponents, in this case L. N. Stolovich? At the very beginning of the article, Ya. E. Elsberg himself gives a fairly clear answer to these questions. Criticizing L. N. Stolovich's book, Elsberg points out first and foremost that L. N. Stolovich transforms aesthetic categories (beautiful, sublime, disgusting, tragic, comic, etc.) into "elements" of reality itself. Below, Ya. E. Elsberg writes: "Of course, it is good that L. N. Stolovich seeks the source (my interpretation - T. P.) of the aesthetic in objective reality, but what is bad is that he mechanically transfers the categories of aesthetics into reality, identifying these categories with the properties of the latter." And even further down, allegedly referring to Chernyshevsky, the author again states: "Yes, the tragic, the comic, the beautiful are contained in life itself, and in it are the roots (my exp. - T. P.) of the corresponding phenomena of art and of aesthetic categories. But to reduce life to them means to pay a tribute to scholastic systematics" ("Questions of Philosophy", No. 1, 1961, pp. 114, 115, etc., my exp. - T. P.).

The issues of aesthetics have always been of great interest to both science and artists. This interest has obviously grown in recent times, thanks to which a lot of research has appeared. Despite this activity, however, there is still no unity among scientists on a number of issues. One of the reasons for this state of affairs is the fact that theoretical generalizations are not always connected with the direct study of the artistic mastery of the individual artist-writer. If this statement is true for modern fiction, how much more so for medieval Slavic literature, especially for old Bulgarian literature. Of course, today it is no longer possible to maintain the view that this literature is purely religious-dogmatic, dry and uninteresting, that it has primarily cognitive significance, helping us to more fully reveal the relevant historical era. To deny any artistry in Old Bulgarian or Old Russian literature is not justified either historically or factually. Because in different centuries there was a different idea of ​​artistry, and when assessing the degree of artistry of a particular monument, we should not take our own point of view, we should not come up with our own claims to artistry, but take into account the understanding of artistry in the society of that era, monuments". 1 which was contemporary to each of these On the other hand, old Bulgarian literature, like Serbian and Russian medieval literature, possesses undoubted artistic merits: it holds the attention of its reader, satisfies his aesthetic sense, acts on his imagination and reason, elevates thoughts and feelings, and gives knowledge of a diverse nature. The stylistic and linguistic form of the works unconditionally corresponds to the appropriate cultural preparation of the reader, so that he can perceive them, be moved by them. Here it is absolutely necessary to observe a certain ratio between the creator and the reader. When this ratio is violated, the impact of the book is insignificant, a reaction begins against it, an opposite movement appears.

The theory of literature as the main discipline of literary science has gone too far in its development: it is about to become not only a theory of literature, but also a methodology of literary science. The problems of the methodology of Marxist literary science were left in the background for some time. Raised sometimes by individual authors, they were not always correctly formulated, which is why the results were partial, and the concepts of fiction as art one-sided. This underestimation of the methodology caused a certain stagnation in literary science and allowed the spread of the abstract-class approach, which has not been completely overcome even today. Here we must also look for the arguments of some Western literary scholars who underestimate or deny the importance of Marxist literary science.

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.