българските

The scientific heritage of Academician N. S. Derzhavin (1877-1953) is enormous in volume and extremely diverse in the nature of the research and the range of issues covered. N. S. Derzhavin is a scientist with a broad profile, a scientist with great erudition in various fields of knowledge. Valuable works on the methodology of teaching the Russian language in secondary school, special studies on the history of Russian literature, on folklore and ethnography of various peoples came from the pen of N. S. Derzhavin. The breadth and diversity of his scientific interests in the field of Slavic studies, his scientific activity as a historian and philologist, ethnographer and folklorist allow us to speak of him as one of the founders of Soviet Slavic studies.

In the first decades after the Liberation, the socio-historical needs of the Bulgarian people required scientific and cultural figures to work on a broad front, to undertake and implement numerous initiatives, to demonstrate civic responsiveness and foresight in order to lay solid foundations for the developing national science and culture. If one part of the post-liberation intelligentsia was carried away by the political demagogy and careerism of the ruling bourgeoisie and their actions deservedly provoked the criticism and indignation of the best realist writers, then another significant part gave their talents and knowledge to the flourishing of education, science, and literature. The great socio-patriotic, ideological, and moral-ethical traditions of the Revival era continued to be a source of inspiration for them to serve devotedly for the all-round progress of our newly liberated people. Among these enthusiastic builders of our national culture, the personality of Prof. Iv. D. Shishmanov. His diverse and fruitful work as a scientist and cultural figure, as a citizen-humanist and a patriot writer is a valuable contribution to the spiritual and intellectual development of our people from the end of the last and the first decades of the current century. Here it is not our task to consider the contribution of Iv. Shishmanov in the numerous areas in which he worked. We will only point out the role of the prominent scientist-humanist in the development of our literature through the comprehensive support he gives to writers and poets, through the rare responsiveness to their needs and aspirations. Shishmanov is one of the few at that time who with such great love and concern follows the development of our national artistic and scientific thought, seeks all possible means and forms in order to create the necessary conditions for the manifestation of creative talents, for the emergence of literature with great ideological-cognitive and patriotic-emotional significance. A trained literary historian and critic who has studied the development of many other national literatures, he accurately sees where the necessary prerequisites are hidden for talents to grow and manifest, what needs to be done so that they are properly nurtured and not wasted. The history of world literature has taught him that artistic thought develops on the basis of a higher culture of the entire people, that its bearers can only be people who live with higher socio-ethical and cultural-aesthetic ideals, but who can also find objective conditions for creative expression with such ideals. That is why he works with dedication to expand and democratize education, to raise the general cultural level of the people. "If you want a richer Bulgarian literature to develop - first of all, provide education and through education, give the opportunity to manifest the hidden talents that exist in all classes, but are silenced because they cannot find the necessary conditions for development." With proverbial persistence, for decades Shishmanov worked to organize a variety of cultural and educational institutes and institutions and deservedly occupies one of the first places among the builders of a new cultural Bulgaria.

Comrades, At our current meeting in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Union of Bulgarian Writers, we started an argument with the Chairman of the Committee on Culture and Art, Dr. Petar Vutov. I asked him to give me the floor later, so that I could prepare accordingly and get into tune, so to speak. But he told me: "It is not possible, Comrade Zhivkov, because the Chairman of the Union of Bulgarian Writers, Dr. Kamen Kalchev, will also speak, and other comrades will speak, and there will also be a literary program." It seems, as I understood from Dr. Vutov's information, that today's meeting will be more difficult than your solemn meeting last night. (Merry cheering. Applause). The second issue of our argument with Dr. Vutov concerns whether I should just raise a toast or deliver a speech. I do not know why Dr. Vutov, by giving me the floor, limits me and suggests that I raise a toast. I could not imagine how you, the writers, would exist if you did not write, and how we, the political and state figures, would exist if we did not deliver speeches. After all, that is how we earn our living. (Merry cheering. Applause). Dear writers, Dear comrades, Distinguished guests, I am fulfilling a pleasant assignment from the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party, the people's government and my comrades - members of the Politburo and secretaries of the Central Committee of the party, who are present at this meeting. I greet you most cordially, warmly fatherly - I mean the party, friendly - I mean our comradeship and ties, on the occasion of the glorious 50th anniversary of the Union of Bulgarian Writers. (Prolonged applause).

Recently, the book by Vitaly Zlidnev "Russian-Bulgarian Literary Relations of the 20th Century" was printed in Moscow as a publication of the Institute of Slavic Studies at the Academy of Sciences, 220 pages. Vitaly Zlidnev is one of the talented students of the unforgettable N. S. Derzhavin, who continue and deepen the tradition he created for active and comprehensive research into issues of history, literature and in general the spiritual activity of the Bulgarian people, illuminating them very often and depending on the development of Russian history and literature, with which the Bulgarian people have been firmly connected since time immemorial. At the Institute of Slavic Studies, and not only there, there are about a dozen relatively young researchers who know in detail individual eras of Bulgarian history and individual our historical figures and writers... It seems to me that I will not be exaggerating at all if I say that the Institute of Slavic Studies occupies a high, honorable place in the process of mutual acquaintance of the two peoples, where its activists often participate with the unique breadth and depth of Russian and Soviet researchers, with the unique humanistic pathos characteristic of them, with the nobility of true brothers and internationalists.

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 question of Russian-Bulgarian cultural ties has always deeply concerned both Bulgarian and Russian historians and literary scholars. In recent years, many new works have appeared in Bulgaria and the Soviet Union that shed light on this problem. Among them can be mentioned the studies of the Soviet scientists N. S. Derzhavin "History of Bulgaria" (I-IV t., M.-L., 1945-48), "Hristo Botev - poet-revolutionary" (M. - L., 1948), "Ivan Vazov. Life and work" (M. L., 1948), etc., by L. Erikhonov "Russian revolutionaries" democrats and public thought of the southern Slavs in the 60s and 70s of the XIX century" (M., 1950), the collective work of Soviet historians "History of Bulgaria" (vol. I, M. - L., 1953), the book "Iz istorii russko-bulgarskih otsenshih. Collection of articles" (M., 1958) as well as individual articles by many authors. At the same time, Bulgarian scholars published several serious studies, among which we should note P. Zarev's work "Bulgarian Literature" (S., 1950), G. Tsanev's "Pages from the History of Bulgarian Literature in the 19th Century" (S., 1958), V. Velchev's "The Impact of Russian Classical Literature on the Formation and Development of Bulgarian Literature in the 19th Century" (S., 1958) and other works.

The first contacts between Bulgarians and French people are lost somewhere in the Middle Ages... After the Great French Revolution, which shook the minds of the whole world, more echoes can be found in our country (due to slavery, they are distant and indirect) of the struggles of the French people for freedom and social justice, of the ideological searches of French society. But the facts of the indirect and concrete acquaintance with French literature and the first contacts and visible influences on individual public and literary figures, mainly those who studied or lived in France, date from the middle of the 19th century. And these contacts and influences are very diverse, go through different stages, have their own interesting history. In the present notes, we focus on those of our writers from the period after the Liberation of Bulgaria from Turkish slavery until the First World War, who studied in French schools, lived in France and began their creative path in a French environment with direct acquaintance and influence of French culture and literature. And one more thing that interests us above all is the concrete facts of this acquaintance: the respective city and university, the student environment and first meetings with foreign writers, the collaboration in the French press, etc., necessary both for enriching the civil biography of the writers, and, of course, for a more complete clarification of their first literary steps and their creative image in general. The impressions are the result mainly of visiting the places where the Bulgarian writers lived and studied, of those few traces that the past decades have spared... The following could be noted in advance: both with the most direct impact of the French social and cultural environment, and with the strongest influence of the diverse French literature on our writers, they do not lose their own national and individual appearance as creators. Even when, especially in the years immediately before the First World War, in the verses of our poets, carried away by symbolism, tones sound or images appear that are very similar to those of their French teachers, they still manage to preserve their Bulgarian face.