между

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.

The mutual relations between the old Russian Literature and the old South Slavic literatures (Bulgarian and Serbian) have long been the subject of research. In this field of science, the most has been written so far by Russian, Bulgarian and Serbian scholars. The number of studies becomes even greater if we take into account the studies in general on the cultural relations between these three fraternal peoples, whose cultural development has many common features and trends. It was a natural phenomenon at the beginning of these studies to search for and indicate the influence of the South Slavic literatures on medieval Russian literature, more precisely on the oldest period of its development. Such is indeed the beginning of their relationship, but it alone does not exhaust the nature of the mutual relations between the Russian and South Slavic Literatures. Because ancient Russia not only adopted cultural values ​​from the Slavic south, but in turn it also influenced the cultural development of Bulgarians and Serbs, works of Russian literature penetrated the old Bulgarian and Serbian literature. This process has been particularly strong since the 16th century, but such an influence also existed before the 16th century, albeit in a weaker form. This statement of the problem of the Russian-Southern Slavic cultural and especially literary relations was first given by the famous Russian Slavic scientist M. N. Speransky. Presented first in his introductory lecture "Dividing the history of Russian literature into periods and the influence of Russian literature on Yugoslavia" (Русский филологический вестинк, XXXVI 1896, vol. 3-4, pp. 193-223). Yugoslav and Russian texts "Stories about the construction of the temple of Sophia of Tsaregrad". Speransky managed to present his many years of observations on this common problem in his monograph “Toward the History of the Relations between Russian and South Slavic Literatures (Russian Monuments of Southern Slavonic Literature), published in 1923 in the Proceedings of the Department of Russian Language and Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (vol. XXVI, pp. 143-206). Here the author asserts: “The number of these facts - Russian monuments of one or another type of the indicated works that were in use among the South Slavs, the participation of Russian writers in the life of South Slavic literatures - although not as large as the number of South Slavic monuments in the practice of writing from the old period, is still quite significant, so that the more general question of the role of Russian literature in South Slavic literature can now be raised, just as we at the time raised and resolved the question of the role of South Slavic literature in Russian (p. 12). This correct methodological indication of Speransky is embedded in the scientific literature after him; he develops this thought in his more recent works, prepared for publication, but remained unpublished. Speransky's numerous studies rightly outline him as a scientist who not only knows best the mutual connections between the old literatures of Bulgarians, Russians and Serbs, but also who has made the greatest contribution to revealing the history of these connections. It is this assessment, perhaps, along with the observation that the problem of Russian-Slavic connections in the 11th-17th centuries, which is of great scientific interest, still needs development, that served as an occasion to publish some of Speransky's studies that remained in his archive.

Staff Captain Mikhailov from the second Sevastopol story ("Sevastopol in May") by Leo Tolstoy is a modest man. His place in the sea of ​​critical writings about the great writer's work is also modest. There, the tall, stooped figure of the staff captain is almost invisible. It seems to hide behind the large silhouette of the slumbering Field Marshal Kutuzov, behind the brilliance of the restless, eternally out of breath Prince Andrei, behind the romantic charm of Hadji Murat, or finally - behind the gunpowder smoke that enveloped Captain Tushin. Of all the interesting characters of the writer, the least has been written about Staff Captain Mikhailov. There is something natural in this. Because he is one of Tolstoy's early favorites. In him, the writer concluded many of his innermost youthful observations and thoughts. But that is precisely why we will see how this character is repeatedly reincarnated with one or another of his qualities in various later heroes of Tolstoy. These latter characters overshadow the former.

Boris Delchev's new book is devoted entirely to the work of the generation of poets born between the two wars, most of whom developed their creative work after September 9th. This fact alone indicates that it has a direct bearing on the vital issues of our contemporary literature. Written with skill and argumentation, with intellectual nerve, the book draws the creative physiognomies of Veselin Khanchev, Bozhidar Bozhilov, Aleksandar Gerov, Ivan Radoev, Aleksandar Vutimski, Tsvetan Spasov. Delchev sheds abundant light on the complex problematics and contradictions of their poetry, on the winding creative and civic path of the main poets of the generation.

After her book on Bulgarian poetry in the period 1923-1944, Rozalia Lykova published her study of fiction during the same period. Having correctly understood the specifics of the literary process between the two wars, she set about characterizing it comprehensively and shedding abundant light on the work of its main representatives, with her inherent temperament. Before us is a researcher with a certain profile, who is able to discover the physiognomic in the artist's art, to determine his place in the development of Bulgarian literature. Her work is an interesting study of literary material, which is still insufficiently developed by our literary science. The book impresses with its correct assessments, with its characterization of the authors and the atmosphere of their work, and with its overall picture of literary life. Lykova's work is defined in the publisher's note as "a brief literary history of our fiction between the two wars." It is essential to see what distinguishes the author's literary-historical method. Her study contains essays on various artists and five general chapters, in which the literary historian's approach manifests itself with its characteristic features. The author not only knows the literary facts. She is able to penetrate behind them, into the spirit of the era in which social strata had shifted so that people's lives were emerging from their old trough, the rusty locks of social conventions and retrogradeness were broken, and new truths and ideals were born. The events also echoed in the sphere of literary phenomena. The foundations of a new literary movement were being laid. Existing methods of depiction could not meet the imperatives of the new era, which taught writers to analyze precisely, to see the true essence of things, to assess their real value.