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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.

The question of characteristic detail is connected with almost all the important problems of literary creation and, of course, to a considerable extent with the problem of conciseness in prose, of condensed, synthetic prose. It is needless to emphasize that the detail that enlivens the incident, the event, the character, that individualizes them, but at the same time typifies them, is the basis of what separates realism both from naturalism and from schematism and simplification in their various forms. It is known that the fiction writer, faced with the life that he has to recreate, first of all encounters a huge number of details. In the diversity of human actions, in the multiplicity of tones that fill the atmosphere, in the tangle of human experiences, the writer should orient himself and recreate them in his presentation. We know how complex reality is, both in the great of the infinite and in the small, in the fragment, even in the microscopic. In a single blade of spring grass there is so much life and color and meaning that, as is known, ancient Japanese artists created an entire school.

Ivan Vazov has left us a lot of information about his life and work. However, there are quite a few unclear questions and contradictory information in his biography. This article sets itself the task of clarifying some moments in the poet's life, some of which are interpreted incorrectly, and others have not been presented for consideration in our press at all. Here we will focus on the question of Vazov's first attempts at the time he spent in Romania during his first trip to participate in the Bulgarian Central Charity Society, correcting some information about Vazov himself along the way. And it is natural that in clarifying these questions, we should first of all proceed from the information that the poet himself has left us. However, this information must be compared and checked repeatedly. Because the uncritical attitude towards them has led to the current situation - to allow not only in popular works, but also in some serious studies about Vazov, gross factual errors and inconsistencies.

The conversations with Kamen Zidarov about the creative process spanned five meetings, the first on March 20, 1960, and the last on April 9, 2015, at his home on 35 Vasil Kolari Street. An alert, creative person, very cheerful, infectious with sparkling wit, revealed his inner wealth to me. Kamen Zidarov talks about everything with amazing ease. The flow of speech is colorful, dotted with wit. He can talk almost without pauses for an entire hour. During the conversations, there is no external tension or effort. Only at the end of the conversation do the slightly stiff movements of his hands betray his fatigue. He achieves a natural liveliness, without completely disappearing. In such moments of fatigue, Zidarov becomes extremely funny. He can entertain guests, jump from topic to topic, tell anecdotes, laugh contagiously, and participate in all kinds of conversations, except perhaps about the creative process... And this is It seems to be one of his forms of rest. Zidarov's great discipline and love of order were evident at all stages of the survey. From the very beginning, he stated that the work would take us four or at most five meetings. The nature of the matter that would occupy us is peculiarly lengthy, and I naturally doubted that the allotted time would be sufficient. But I very soon realized how unfounded Kamen's concerns were. Zidarov grasps the questions immediately and with great conscientiousness erases them. He struggles to remember all the interesting details that relate to the production of his dramas, but he never gets bogged down in unnecessary things, does not deviate in the wrong direction. His memory is amazingly clear and accurate. The playwright quickly and very concisely clarifies the essence of the problem, dwells on the most important and interesting, and then imperceptibly, without prefaces, moves on to a new group of questions. Especially at those places in the conversation, when the story came to life under the imitative tall of Zidarov.

One of the main issues in Yordan Yovkov's work is the question of tragedy in life and its artistic reflection in art. The writer is able to see and convey with irresistible force the tragic beginning in reality. With his best works, he convinces in an artistic way that tragedy can be caused not only by the immediate material conditions and circumstances inherent in a given time, but also by a number of individual qualities and characteristics acquired during the millennial existence of humanity. In this way, Yovkov shows that these qualities and characteristics, which are ultimately formed again under the determining role of material conditions (only not the current material conditions), have relative independence and very often have a great, even decisive influence on the fate of man. Such an artistic attitude comprehends, albeit insufficiently, the economic reasons, without ignoring other factors and circumstances for the existence and manifestation of tragedy. Although it increases the risk of errors in the artistic reflection of reality, it opens up great possibilities for the comprehensive and profound depiction of life. Thanks to it, in some of his best works Yovkov manages to reach true heights of artistic mastery in reflecting the tragic in reality.

The present notes on the latest English novel are by no means exhaustive and are intended rather to outline some common and interesting features in the literary life of contemporary England. They are limited to four or five works by younger novelists: "Happy Jim" by Kingsley Amis, "A Place at the Top" by John Brain, and "This Is Love, After All" by Stan Barstow, "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" by Alan Sillitoe. All these authors belong in spirit to one trend - they are more or less among the so-called "sirdites" or "angry young people" - and they are connected by a certain community in concepts, and even in their means of expression. Whatever shortcomings the "angry ones" may have, however justly they may suffer attacks on many points, they have nevertheless managed to assert themselves in English literary life and even, in a certain sense, to occupy a commanding position, to set its tone. With all reservations, they remain, both as a whole line and as separate achievements, the largest, central phenomenon in English literature of the last few years. On the one hand, they are very indicative of the moods and psychological reactions of the young English intelligentsia, they expressed a certain stage in the development of its thinking; on the other hand, both criticism and the large circulations of the above-mentioned novels point to them as the best among all the rest of the production. That is why it would not be entirely arbitrary to limit an analysis mainly to them - it would indeed not illuminate the whole problem, but it would cover the core of the problem. Of course, it should be immediately reminded once again that this is not a comprehensive review of the English novel and that a number of novelists known to our reader, such as Graham Greene, James Aldridge, Jack Lindsay, are beyond their scope.

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 world literary history, there are artists whose historical significance becomes more and more evident with the passage of time, who push for reflection, for new quests of the mind and heart. Such a notable personality is V. G. Belinsky, 150 years since the birth of whom today the progressive public from all countries marks with gratitude, making new efforts to delve into the rich heritage of this great son of the Russian people in order to establish the impact of his revolutionary-political, theoretical-philosophical, literary-critical thought on and later generations. contemporaries Having passed an instructive path of ideological and creative development, Belinsky stands on the most progressive positions of his time, understands the needs and tasks of the era, strives for new revolutionary concepts of social, ethical and aesthetic values. Many of the principles he established still resonate today with undiminished force, have lost none of their vital relevance, and serve as the basis for further research. Belinsky's multifaceted and rich work seems to embody the comprehensive spirituality of the great Russian people, as if the socio-political, moral-philosophical, and literary-theoretical problems of the era are gathered. The insights of the great thinker cut through the gloomy atmosphere of bourgeois-landlord Russia like lightning - groaning and struggling against oppression and injustice, against the Nicholas monarchical dictatorship, and outline the radiant horizons to which human thought has been striving for centuries. What excited and worried his contemporaries, what flashed in the minds of honest people, disturbed the squeamish consciences of all sorts of oppressors of the human person, manifests itself in Belinsky with astonishing power, to charm and inspire the wronged, to frighten those in power. His articles take up the most pressing issues of the time, are met as a revelation. In them one feels the bubbling of an immense energy, the daring of a penetrating thought, the rebellion of a restless civic pathos of a loving heart.

In June of this year, at a joint meeting of the section for Bulgarian literature after the Liberation, for Russian classical and Soviet literature and literary theory at the Institute of Literature, the work "Some Problems of Humor and Satire in Soviet Literary Studies" by Velichko Valchev was discussed. The reviewer Boyan Nitchev finds that the author has diligently and conscientiously studied almost all the works of Soviet researchers published in the last ten years, who deal with the work of prominent Russian and Soviet satirists. The review in this area highlights questions about the specificity of the genre and artistic mastery, distinguishes the various shades of the comic, devotes significant space to the character of Soviet satire and its ideological positions, etc. The author focuses on the works of prominent Soviet literary scholars Ya. Elsberg, Yu. Borev, L. Ershov, V. Kirpotin, A. K. Bushmin. The reviewer finds that, in general, the first three sections of the article are informative in nature. The presentation is concise, there are no problems, and in places the content of the works under consideration is impoverished. B. Nichev evaluates the second part of V. Valchev's work as more interesting. In it, the author shows more in-depth observations and presents correct opinions. The reviewer pointed out that V. Valchev should develop this part in a broader plan, focusing on more recent published works and making more complete and comprehensive summaries. In conclusion, B. Nichev pointed out that V. Valchev's work has no specific goal and in this form is informative in nature. After serious cuts (in the first part), revision and recomposition of the material, it can be used for the review department of the Institute's Bulletin.

In recreating the image of the communist in our country there is a long and rich tradition from the past: in poetry - D. I. Polyanov, Hr. Smirnensky, N. Vaptsarov and the post-1930s; in prose - again Smirnensky, Kr. Velkov, G. Karaslavov and others. New people - new in their social consciousness, in their spiritual appearance - were formed during the years of great battles of our people against capitalism and fascism. And in order to understand the type of person - the type of revolutionary, an active historical figure - literature naturally turns to the image of the communist. Why is this so? Because the communist is not only a politically significant image, but also a bearer of the new in our time in general. What is more - right next to him walks the conscious citizen who does not yet have a party ticket, but to whom the cause of the communist party is close. Today, it is clear to readers and writers that every more substantial, more artistically convincing image of the communist always has a "cover" in socialist reality itself. And he always returns to it, reality, to serve it, but already aesthetically evaluated. This is one of the main advantages of contemporary socialist-realist literature. So far, in articles and speeches, an attempt has been made, sometimes more cursory, sometimes more in-depth, to clarify theoretically and mainly in connection with practice the problem of the communist in literature. For example, it was discussed during the national review of contemporary Bulgarian drama in 1959. And in 1960, the Writers' Union organized a three-day theoretical conference on the topic "The Image of the Communist in Literature". The purpose of this article is to dwell on some unexamined questions and, in particular, on individual literary works. Limiting the topic hides some inconveniences, and perhaps even dangers. But it also has some advantages: we will keep our focus on today, on contemporary problems.

Artistic image and signal! What is the connection between these concepts that are so distant at first glance? Is it possible to prove the hypothesis of the signal nature of the work of art? There is no doubt that these new, as well as undeveloped questions will increasingly insistently excite art theorists. Aesthetics cannot stay away from the intersection of sciences. The border areas of knowledge have become the ground for the most serious scientific discoveries of our time. Aesthetics has ceased to be far from the needs of society. Aesthetic education, according to the decisions of the XXII Congress of the CPSU, acquires a necessary general character, art receives new exceptional functions of organizer and transformer in the formation of modern aesthetic taste in every member of socialist society. Thanks to the profound revolutionary changes and new technical means of social communication, the artist received an extremely numerous and extremely diverse in social, national and individual needs and capabilities audience, art has penetrated into every home, to every individual. Public regulation and management of the process of formation and development of aesthetic taste is required. In this regard, the study of the laws of public information is of exceptional importance. The artistic image can be considered as a signal of a special kind, which is still very poorly studied by cybernetics. In this regard, aesthetics can not only receive a lot, but also give a lot to this famous ultramodern scientific discipline. This can be done both by way of a precise general definition of the artistic image, and by way of some private definitions, the disclosure of individual aspects of the artistic image. Of the general definitions, the most synthetic and closest to the requirements of modern thinking seems to us to be the definition of Todor Pavlov, given in "General Theory of Art".1 Here we do not set ourselves the task of interpreting or updating Todor Pavlov's formula.

The general statement that the most important, combative variety of literary critical thought - operational criticism - lives an anemic life, stagnates in one place, does not fulfill its primary tasks on time and at the required level has become a worn-out phrase. More and more names of critics, who until yesterday actively participated in the literary process and, to the best of their ability, assisted the emergence of new works and phenomena, today appear on the covers of studies of long-established and universally recognized writers, of studies of faded Bulgarian and European trends. We are slowly coming to terms with the fact - as interesting as it is revealing - that we already have, let's say, a richly argued, fascinatingly written book on French existentialism and the contemporary Western "anti-novel", while at the same time, there is almost no deep, penetrating and courageous research on Bulgarian novels published in the last few years. If, for example, someone wishes to familiarize themselves with the assessments of Bulgarian literary criticism for the novels published in 1961, they can be sure that they will not be particularly hampered by the abundance of opinions. A short review of "Ohrid Spring" by D. Sprostranov in "Plamak", a short review of "Skazanie za vremeno na Samuila" in "Literaturni novini", two short, but true and in many respects convincing reviews of "Martvo valnenie" in "Literaturni novini" and in "Septemvri", can be a few more semi-critical, semi-advertising notes in peripheral newspapers and magazines - and that's all! Namely, this year saw the publication of novels that deserve serious, comprehensive and intelligent conversation - sometimes pleasant, sometimes bitter.

The interest in the issues of Bulgarian-Serbian and Bulgarian-Croatian literary, cultural and ideological-political relations in the past is conditioned primarily by the rich content of these relations, by their scientific significance. Not only neighboring, but also with a relatively equal political fate, Bulgarians, Serbs and Croats followed very similar directions and traditions in their spiritual development for nearly a century. Even in the conditions of their political slavery they managed to use each other's experience and achievements in the field of culture to create original artistic values. The informed reader knows how characteristic in this respect is the literary activity of writers such as Konstantin Ognjanović, Petko Slavejkov, Ljuben Karavelov and Hristo Botev, Jovan Raič, Dositej Obradović, Vuk Karadžić, Jovan Sterija Popović, Ivan Kukuljević-Sakčinski, Petar Preradović, August Harambašić and others, whose works penetrated all South Slavic countries, accelerating the process of the formation and development of South Slavic literatures.

The bold feuilletons of the Lucky Man appeared in the 1990s, when the bourgeoisie, eager for power and wealth, had already thrown the people into a new slavery. At that time, the Populist party, headed by Konstantin Stoilov, was ruling. Stambolov was overthrown from power, but his deputy oppressed the people with the same barbaric means. The democratic Tarnovo constitution, which was at that time, was cruelly trampled. This is how Dimitar Blagoev characterizes this bloody era: "In terms of domestic politics, the Populist regime was just as gangster and violent as Stambolov's. The Stambolov regime had many political murders through torture in prisons, through mass shootings during elections, through military executions, etc. But the Populist regime added to these horrors political murders from ambushes by bribed robbers and gangs. "1

The development of contemporary Bulgarian literature and the emergence of various creative trends in it require an increasingly insistent consideration of the issues of style by our theoretical thought. We are far from the illusion that we will resolve the issue. We will be satisfied if we only manage to highlight some of its aspects. Style is a tough nut to crack. It does not obey dry dogmas, pedantic rationality. It must be approached with broader understandings of art. A separate formula cannot contain the wealth of styles. Before deriving laws about the essence, power and effect of style, we must penetrate the living tissue of artistic phenomena.

Here the curtain is lifted and the reality, which is supposedly so familiar to us, is revealed in some unseen, unsuspected light. The reason, of course, is at least in the modern, unfamiliar, often a little bizarre artistic means, although they are sometimes necessary. The reason is in the unusually fresh, wise, communist contemporary view of the author, in his new discovery of the world. The bearer of "innovative power" in the play, of that dreamed thing that the viewer seems to want to take with him after the performance, is the dramatic image. Through it, the playwright achieves his ultimate goal: to influence the viewer. Without a dramatic image, the most fulfilling idea, the most complexly conceived conflict, and the most original dramatic composition hang in the air. Only the dramatic image-discovery can give them flesh and blood, revive the author's innermost thoughts, excite the viewer with his fate, make him think, believe in the improbable.

Georgi Dimitrov's statements on literary issues represent not only a very interesting and important page from his multifaceted and rich life as a communist revolutionary of global significance, but they are also extremely valuable documents, the in-depth study of which makes it possible to clarify and resolve some of the basic problems of our literary development.

Until recently, there was still a popular view that the entire artistic development of mankind represented a pyramid, at the top of which stood realism. I would not say that the period of the cult of personality with its pronounced tendency to hierarchical thinking was without merit in creating such a pyramidal idea of ​​the development of art. The fact that realism is one of the most significant achievements of human artistic thinking, that it arose on the most valuable conquests of all literatures and schools before it, was turned into an absurdity by this theory, which generalized it to all the more significant manifestations of art. This impoverished the entire picture of artistic development to an incredible extent.

At the 18th International Congress of Slavists, the issues of Russian classical literature were widely discussed in accordance with its role and significance among other Slavic and non-Slavic literatures. The reports were numerous, with a different range of problems and appearance, written from different ideological and methodological positions. They nevertheless lend themselves to a certain degree of classification and grading. The first group of reports includes those that treated the most general problems of Russian classical literature (D. D. Blagoi, Dr. Nedelkovich). Their main task was to reveal the reasons that conditioned the emergence of this very important stage in the general centuries-old life of Russian literature, to establish some of its basic regularities, the main lines of its development, its appearance, place and significance. A central place is occupied by the clarification of the reasons for the emergence, development and demise of literary trends in their complex interrelation. Comparison with the corresponding moments and features of Western literatures is an important feature of these reports, which contributes to their greater completeness and justification of the theses. The authors of another group of reports (F. Seely, V. Velchev, B. Kreft, L. Niro, D. Grishin, E. Krag, I. Blankoff) have focused their attention on the study of very specific issues in the work of individual Russian writers or their mutual influences. Their goal in principle is to bring new moments into the clarification of the creative physiognomy of one or another writer, to shed light on controversial or insufficiently clear problems of his individual works, to show in a new aspect some aspects of his ideological and aesthetic concepts, to focus attention on some features of his style. The existence of such reports is justified by the need to develop specific problems, without which large generalizations are impossible. The presentation of a fairly large number of such reports, however, led in this case to a certain deviation from the main problems that should have been discussed in depth at the congress. A significant number of reports dealt in detail with the relations of Russian literature with other literatures (N. Krutikova, G. Dimov, T. Gane, V. Edgerton, Alb. Kovacs, etc.). Here, an important place is occupied not by the study of direct, immediate borrowings, but by the fundamental questions of the exchange and assimilation of artistic and theoretical experience between Russian literature and a number of Slavic and some non-Slavic literatures.

As is known, already in the 18th and 19th centuries, Serbian and Bulgarian writers dedicated their works to the revival of the two peoples. Andrija Kačić-Miošić, for example, did not divide the southern Slavs. Dositej Obradović mentioned in his works not only Serbia, but also "poor Bulgaria". Vuk Karadžić was the first to publish Bulgarian folk songs, Konstantin Ognjanović worked for the spiritual awakening of the Bulgarian people, to whom he dedicated his works. Major writers such as Hristofor Žefarović and Jovan Rajić were of Bulgarian origin. They wrote their works in the Russian-Slavic language and contributed equally to the Bulgarian and Serbian spiritual and political development. During the Renaissance, an unprecedented transfer of ideas and themes from one literature to another occurred. However, when we must note the undoubted impact of South Slavic literatures in our country, especially since the beginning of the 19th century, we must also bear in mind the fact that these South Slavic literatures themselves sought models in Italian, Russian, Greek and Austrian literature, that they were in natural, natural relationships with these literatures. First of all, Dalmatian, and for a long time after that, the other Slavic literatures suffered the general influence of the European Renaissance, which manifested itself somewhere earlier, somewhere later in separate borrowings and imitations of one or another model. That is why, when we study the Serbian and Croatian literary and cultural influence in our country at the beginning of the 19th century, we cannot help but notice that this is actually a natural creative process that encompasses both countries, as well as the other Balkan peoples, that historically conditioned interconnections are taking place here, that from what we have taken in a given period, we have created qualitatively new works with which we have moved literary development forward.

While before September 9, 1944, only the translations of the most prominent representatives of our classics such as Ivan Vazov, Pencho Slaveykov, Elin Pelin, Yordan Yovkov, and in separate anthologies of about 40 other authors were known abroad, now we can state with satisfaction the fact that over the past 20-year historical period, more than 1,450 volumes of Bulgarian prose, poetry and drama have been published in 57 foreign languages ​​in a total of 24,000,000 copies.

Tradition and innovation is a problem that has been discussed the most in the history of literature. This problem is infinitely broad and connected with the very essence of literature. When talking about it, one must take into account the questions of the national and cosmopolitan character of a literature, the traditions in this literature, the mutual influences between individual writers and individual literatures, schools and creative individualities, literary fashions and snobbery, the contemporary sensibility and worldview of the writer, the changes in the consciousness of the contemporary in view of social changes, the nationality and party affiliation, the role of social ideals, etc. In our country, this question is often understood narrowly and is limited mainly within the form of the means of expression.

In the movement of Bulgarian literature there are a number of inconsistencies, a number of paradoxes, which are caused by the lateness and backwardness of our life due to the five-century yoke. In a short time, without the necessary experience and preparation, we had to catch up with what was missed, to catch up with the new in thought and in contemporary ideas, to participate in the world cultural process with our national contribution. In this haste, in the impatience to keep up with the new, to not remain provincials, a number of our writers of the past thoughtlessly put on foreign costumes, made the Bulgarians get out of their skin, to rave uncharacteristically, to repeat ready-made thoughts. In our country, some currents of European thought have taken too caricatured forms, have borne the unripe fruits of superficial imitation. These questions have found a proper formulation in G. Tsanev's report, which contains Some new clarifications about individual movements and authors in the development of our literature.

The interest that our literary studies show in our relations with our neighbors in the past is a proven fact. It testifies to the attention with which literary scholars in our country turn to the most beautiful and fruitful manifestations of friendship and amity between the Balkan peoples. In addition, this fact testifies to the expansion of the thematic perimeter of our literary studies; it is an expression of the aspiration of our literature to find its place in a broader literary context. Therefore, the first question that arises when we become acquainted with the recently published book on Bulgarian-Serbian literary relations in the 19th century is whether it meets the requirements of such an important and complex task. Konev's work consists of two parts. The first - "The Great Beginning" contains four chapters: 1. Literary exchange between Bulgarians and Serbs. 2. Translated and Bulgarianized works. Character and significance. 3. The creative path of P. R. Slaveykov and Serbian literature. 4. Serbian teachers in Bulgaria. Literary and cultural and educational activity. The second part, which is called "In support of realism in literature", includes the following chapters: 1. Encounters with drama. 2. Lyuben Karavelov in the development of the Serbian realistic short story. 3. Before the dawn of freedom.

The poetic legacy of Pencho Slaveykov is a fruitful topic for the study of the creative process. To clarify the psychic functions of Slaveykov's poetic personality in view of the artistic text, letters, documents, memories, etc. - this is one of the main problems facing our literary critics. These functions determine the main psychic units of his creative system, they clarify the psychomotorics of the poet, his creative psychogram. The explanation of Slaveykov's poetic work cannot be achieved only within the framework of the most general findings and with the means of a terminology, in whose basic linguistic structures-definitions in most cases there is not enough scientific content. The poet's creative system, explained in a number of studies and articles, needs, in my opinion, a revision.

This is the tenth book in a row by Efrem Karanfilov and is yet another proof of his diverse literary interests. This time, the subject of study is only Bulgarian authors - poets from different eras and generations, from Paisius to our contemporaries. In Paisius's story, the critic is struck by a twisted revolutionary passion and an unquenchable, eternal youth, which captivates him with its irrepressible drive. It forces him to express in one breath the fascination of the immortal Paisius' work over the modern reader. This work sounds to him like a heroic poem, it carries him with the violent strength of the Hilendar monk, it ignites him with his patriotic flame. He writes about Paisius in an uplifting manner, with a romantic coloring in the style and diction. Efrem Karanfilov is most strongly and sincerely moved when he discovers fighting moods in the poets. The deepest experiences and immediate excitements in his soul are awakened by the fanfare of the martial lyre, the revolutionary flight of poetry sparkling with youth and vitality.

Vakhtangov as a fully developed artist with his own concept of the art of theater can be spoken of mainly in connection with his two last masterpieces - "Khadibuk" by A. N. and "Turandot" by K. Gotsi. Here he already reveals his understanding of the tasks of the new Soviet art, of the place of the director and the actor in it, of the relationship between the playwright and the theater, of the need to reach new social and psychological depths. It is quite natural that with these productions Vakhtangov managed to immortalize himself, to remain a symbol of a unified theatrical revolution, of a renaissance in Soviet art. Therefore, it is precisely these two performances that give us the right to examine in a generalized manner a number of more general questions of the art of theater, closely related to modernity.

Before examining the most general propositions that Isaac Passy formulates and defends in his book on tragedy, I will dwell on that chapter of it which bears the title "Aristotle's Dispute with Plato". Let me be allowed to begin with a topic that I myself have been developing for years. I will justify my desire with one more circumstance: my research, although unmentioned in Passy, ​​has had an impact on his book, and for me it is not without importance how this happened. I want to assure the reader that I will not abuse his patience and will not devote the initial part of my article exclusively to personal authorial interests. Because, on the other hand, the chapter in question reveals some important features that characterize Passy's book in general.

Bulgarian historical folk songs, in the broad sense of the word, encompass, in addition to works directly related to historical events, the heroic and haidush epics. Despite the fact that in Bulgarian science there are already well-known traditions on the issue of the main division of this type of folk songs, namely: heroic, historical and haidush, when considering the poetics of folk poetry, the unification of these three groups is simply necessary in order to show the development of the genre, the epic hero, etc. The task of this article is to examine some aspects of the artistic features of the Bulgarian heroic folk epic, starting with the heroic epic and ending with the partisan songs. First of all, we will try to characterize the epic hero of these songs, who in this long period of time (14th-20th centuries) changed depending on the political, social and economic conditions of Bulgaria.

The most important problem of a historical novel, as well as of any work of art, is its attitude to the present. Every significant historical novel is indicative of the moods, aesthetic principles, tastes and preferences of its time. To discover the modern in history, to draw the reader's attention to one or another of its sides, to one or another aspect of well-known and usually not new historical problems - this is an individual creative work. The category of subjectivity retains its place in our aesthetics as the writer's right to an original creative interpretation of the topic on the basis of the objective-materialist approach to history. This is a subjectivity of a new quality, which has nothing to do with the arbitrariness of subjectivism, since the writer does not oppose himself to the deep and enduring social moods, but, on the contrary, strives to express them as clearly and fully as possible.

The great proletarian poet usually lives in our consciousness with the dazzling brilliance of his poetic images, with the captivating dynamics and heroism of mass revolutionary scenes, with his youthful exaltation. Smirnensky was a contemporary of epochal, hitherto unheard-of events in history. Dizzy by their grandeur, the poet saw them in fantastic outlines. For him, the rebellious slaves turned into titans, who, having built their enormous stature on a par with mountain ridges, carry within themselves the sun and the storm, and the revolution was an angrily erupting volcano, a stormy sea, a fierce element of ocean waves, a bristled fiery colossus. "A fairy tale of fiery images and paintings" - this is how Georgi Bakalov defined the form of Smirnensky's revolutionary poetry. But if we exhaust the poet's creative portrait with these features alone, it would be very incomplete. The inspired proletarian singer turned out to be a master not only in revolutionary poetry, but also in tender, intimate lyrics, in the short story, in the essay, in the feuilleton and in satirical poetry. In Smirnensky, the poet, the fiction writer, the cheerful humorist and the merciless satirist happily combined. And in all genres he achieved a rare variety of stylistic techniques, he emerged as a unique creative individuality. It was as if the muses had fallen madly in love with this fiery young man and generously showered him with versatile gifts. Along with the titanic images of the October Revolution, of the rebellious masses, Johann, Delecluze, the gladiator, the little gavroshchés, the street woman, the tobacco worker scarred by the "yellow guest", the stonemason, the florist, the blind musician, the Russian peasants condemned to starvation appear before us as alive. They are all drawn in natural height, without romantic embellishment. And in "Winter Evenings" with great simplicity and expressiveness, pictures of harsh everyday life are drawn. Many of the stories are written with the same simplicity. In them the tone is not so elevated, there is not that titanicness of the images, as in much of the revolutionary poetry.

Over the past ten years, interest in the issues of Old Bulgarian literature has grown significantly, both among our own and among some foreign scholars. In the first place among foreigners in this regard are the Soviet medievalists D. S. Likhachev,1 I. P. Eryomin,2 Yu. K. Begunov, N. K. Gudziy, M. V. Shchenkina, who in a number of their works shed light on one or another fact of our old literature, express one or another assessment of the phenomena, etc. Following the example of their predecessors - the old Russian Slavists and experts on Old Bulgarian literature - they strive to study the facts well, to systematize them and, on the basis of all this, to draw the appropriate conclusions and inferences. This approach to the phenomena of the development of Old Bulgarian literature is completely correct and leads to positive results. Therefore, the mentioned Soviet scholars can also boast of valuable achievements.

There is no dispute - the old literatures of Bulgarians, Serbs and Rus' show some common features in content, trends, development, style, genres, writers, etc. This is precisely what gives reason in the history of the pan-European literary development to consider them as a group of literatures, to search for and point out features that represent something new in this development. To a certain extent, the latest publication of the well-known and prominent Soviet scholar and medievalist Dmitry Sergeyevich Likhachev - "Old Slavic Literatures as a System" is due to this indisputable commonality. More precisely, the thoughts expressed here further develop and detail his opinions expressed several years earlier. His last publication, in fact an expanded and revised report, delivered in Prague in 1968 at the VI Slavic Congress, touches on several very important problems in the history of the old Slavic literatures: 1. Phenomena of literary transplantation; 2. Old Slavonic literature as a mediator and the Slavic review (redaction) of Byzantine culture; 3. Genres and types of Old Slavonic literatures; 4. Old Slavonic literatures and folklore; 5. Old Slavonic literatures and the visual arts; 6. Old Slavonic literatures and reality.

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.

In the recently published article by the prominent Soviet researcher, an excellent expert on Old Russian and Old Slavic literature in general, Professor D. S. Likhachev, a whole series of general and specific questions in the field of medieval Slavic literature are put forward for consideration, which deserve the greatest attention. The author first of all makes an attempt to introduce into literary studies some new concepts and definitions, which is, above all, the concept of "system of literature", that is, "a certain relationship of its parts to each other: the types of literature (translated and original, church, historical, natural science, journalistic, etc.), of its genres, of its individual works". At the same time, he points out that the system or structure of a given literature is subject to continuous change, and differences are discernible in it according to individual historical periods. Professor D. Likhachev sets himself the task of examining the most ancient period of this development, namely the period from the 9th to the 13th centuries, and this concerns the emergence and initial development of literature among the southern and eastern (that is, Russian) Slavs. His attention is directed primarily to Old Russian literature: in his opinion, it presents "an example of those phenomena that are also characteristic of other Old Slavonic literatures." These general considerations represent for the Soviet specialist in Old Slavonic literature only an introduction to the consideration of several partial questions of particularly great interest. First of all, this is the question of the influence of the medieval literatures of the eastern and southern Slavs.

We have always admired the remarkable generalizing thought of D. S. Likhachev and his broad erudition, which allow him to look in a new, extremely original way at a number of problems in old Russian literature - to a large extent problems of Bulgarian literature as well - and to express convincing new views, directing scientific research to unexplored areas. However, his article "Old Slavonic Literatures as a System" (Literary Thought, vol. 1, 1969) particularly excites us, because, as is known, it specifically addresses problems of Old Bulgarian literature and a number of fundamental questions that relate in general to the character and development of Old Slavonic literatures. A large part of the thoughts expressed by D. S. Likhachev are the result of insightful observations and cannot be ignored by Slavic scholars in their scientific research work on their native literature. Other opinions disturb with their categorical generalization or prompt reflection, as they subject traditional concepts and understandings to reassessment. The article by D. S. Likhachev invites a thorough and comprehensive examination of Old Bulgarian literature on the level of modern science.

Two recent international congresses - the Belgrade Congress of the (international) Association for the Comparative History of Literature (ASIL), 1967, and the Prague Sixth International Congress of Slavists, 1968, updated the issues of comparative literary studies, confronted us with the need to clarify our attitude to this science unequivocally. At the Belgrade Congress, a proposal was adopted to prepare a collective work on the comparative history of European literatures, the Literary Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences received powers from ASIL and the obligation to coordinate the work scientifically and administratively, and in Budapest the first volume of a series of collections that examine preliminary problems is already being prepared for publication. At the Prague Congress, the Soviet delegation launched the idea of ​​writing a collective history of Slavic literatures, it seems to me, without achieving much success. Although each of the undertakings is independent in organizational terms, there is an internal connection between them. The success of the first undertaking should prompt us to develop the second: how Slavic literatures will be represented in the comparative history of European literatures will depend on the objectivity and scientific merits of Slavic literary history.