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A resourceful French artist painted Rabelais's portrait in an interesting composition: behind the great satirist stand Homer and Socrates - the one the embodiment of poetry, and the other - of wisdom. In front of Rabelais's brilliant work "Gargantua and Pantagruel" one can see a "crowd" of writers who have more or less experienced the influence of his ironic laughter. Among the crowd of artists are depicted such brilliant masters of the pen as Moliere, Swift, Lesage, Voltaire, Balzac, in whose satirical works, according to the artist, the unfading tradition of the cheerful French monk lives. Whatever the extent of Rabelais's influence on the work of these writers, their satire is still so peculiar, so "theirs" that we call it "Moliere's satire", "Swift's satire", "Balzac's satire", thereby expressing its peculiarity. Every gifted author who wields a Juvenal whip in his hand, without necessarily being in the ranks of those great morons I mentioned above, has his own characteristic sarcasm, or, so to speak, as many satirists exist in literature as there is bitter laughter.

Although the decadence of the West at the end of the last century marked a turning point towards decline and ruin, lights of past greatness still shone, powerful voices still thundered, interesting ideas were still born. Only half a century since Paul Valéry, we can no longer recognize anything of what was once the wonderful "Sardis" of bourgeois culture. The last great representatives of critical realism in the West leaned to the left and abandoned the sinking ship of the bourgeoisie: Anatole France, Thomas Mann, Romain Rolland and others. After them, the ruin became so widespread that it would be difficult to notice any reliable forms, trends or schools now. It is not that there are no names, but they are in most cases alienated from life. In this inscrutable whirlpool, some reliable authors have fallen and are falling, who make incredible efforts to free themselves and find meaning, a path and a goal in life. Because everything that in the West is proclaimed to be meaning or an idea turns out to be nonsense, chaos, everything that shows itself as the free development of the personality turns out to be pathlessness, wandering or trampling. in one place. To the horror of Western bourgeois ideologists, the freedom so solemnly proclaimed turned out to be not only "hungry" (in Marx's phrase) but also empty!

There are translated books that are quickly forgotten. There are also those that remain in our consciousness, create new worlds before us and permanently captivate us. These notes will try to explain a charm, so fresh and so beautiful, so strong and so bright - the charm of Halldor Laxness, the great Icelandic writer, creator of "Independent People". In 1902, a boy was born in Reykjavik. He showed great talents and for many years bumped into the stone walls of many philosophies and faiths, until one day he went out into the wide field - facing the dark North Sea and the Icelandic wilderness. Before that, the boy had traveled many countries, stared in awe at the centuries-old monuments of civilization, denied his impenetrably backward homeland, only to return one day and discover the famous skald Egil Skalagrimsson, to fall in love with sagas and legends, to see the harsh face of the harsh truths of life and experience the divine thirst to transform them into art. The boy had already become a man, and abroad he had come to love his homeland, because he had seen it in its true dimensions and magnitude. And a man can say with a firm, confident voice The people slept in the mountains, inhabited by fairy creatures and elves, and in this virgin land, where every valley reminds of our history, every wilderness is a symbol of our innermost feelings, we live today as if reborn children of nature, gifted with sincerity who speak in a divine language, and above us the morning sky dissolves, predictions and signs burn in the forest... In the most remote places lives an unwavering striving for spiritual development. In the present generation there is no sense of satisfaction, this plague bacillus of stupidity in stagnation. Everything is in ferment. People want a deeper, richer spiritual life. In every young Icelandic heart lives a joyful foreboding

During the national discussion of literature education, one of the main issues, which was debated quite temperamentally, was the quality of literature textbooks. Despite some extreme and incorrect statements, to which enthusiasm and partly prejudice led some critics, the general assessment was unanimous and correct. The discussion confirmed that literature textbooks, although some authors have achieved partial success, lag behind the development of literary science, are not full-fledged assistants to students and teachers. Literature textbooks do not reveal clearly and fully the ideological depth and aesthetic value of the artistic work. The historical-literary process is not illuminated in its breadth and complexity. Errors of the most different nature are allowed - scientific, methodological. The language is dry, inexpressive, inaccurate, overloaded with formulaic phrases.

The author of the present had a conversation in December 1943 with Georgi Raichev in order to print my conversation along with a dozen others in a book under the title "Meetings and Conversations", published by Hr. Cholchev. However, the Anglo-American bombings on January 10, 1944 buried the book in the "Economic Development" printing house on Bacho Kiro Street. The conversation with Georgi Raichev has been preserved thanks to a proofreading. We are transmitting it without any changes.

The collection "From the History of World Literature" (edited by Prof. Emil Georgiev and Dr. Georgi Dimov, Publishing House of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia 1962), conceived around 1959, has finally come out of print. Regardless of the delay, this is a good event. And it would be even better if the Literary Institute decided to make a non-periodical edition of similar collections, which would be published once or twice a year. Our literary research activity has good traditions in the field of Western European, ancient and Slavic literatures - it is enough to remember the names of Shishmanov, Krastev, Mich. Arnaudov, Al. Balabanov. And in recent years, work in this area has not subsided, but remains, unfortunately, limited to university publications. Finding readers outside the university environment is, however, vital for literary scholars who do not get space for their special studies in literary journals, which are limited in scope and related to more topical issues. So the question of contact with a wider audience remains unresolved for the time being.

I vividly remember an incident from the first years after the war. At that time, the Writers' Union was located on Lege Street and had only two or three modest rooms, which could hardly accommodate even its administrative and editorial departments, which were still very small at that time. Therefore, when general meetings of the members were necessary, difficulties arose and it was necessary to seek temporary shelter under someone else's roof. Thus, somewhat unexpectedly, in March 1947, the general annual meeting was held in the large concert hall of Radio Sofia.

Recently, Minko Nikolov published his new book, dedicated to the work of Bertolt Brecht - the most significant playwright of the mid-twentieth century. This fact in itself shows how important the subject of the book is, what a gap this book fills in our contemporary art studies. The work on Brecht was also necessary because of a number of fruitless disputes about Brecht's methodology, which always revolved around Brecht, around arithmetic problems and never reached the heart, the meaning of the great creative work. These conversations created an atmosphere of suspicion in connection with the name of Brecht, they made gossip out of things that should be written about with the true mark of respect - with inner passion and civic conviction. I note this not only in connection with Minko Nikolov's book, but also because of something else. Because of that scientific conscientiousness that should be present in the assessment of great contemporary writers. It is true that Brecht does not fit into the needle's eye of narrow-mindedness and spiritual laziness, but this does not mean at all that we should deprive our socialist art of a Great Creator. Brecht may not belong to the geographical latitude that is closest to us, but he is a creature of the same forces that renew the climate, the spirit of our time. The struggle for Brecht, when it is led by a Marxist-critic, is not an apology for flat rationalism, it is only an affirmation of the rational, spiritual, active communist principle in Brecht's dramaturgy.

The breadth of the concept of history in its present sense in itself determines the complexity of the task that confronts the compilers of works on the history of literature. Solving this task requires, above all, an exceptionally competent penetration into the spirit of the time about which one writes and into the spirit of the time in which one writes. For we can be less and less satisfied with literary histories that are reduced to stating facts and commenting on events, proceeding from literary works. We are talking about something significantly more complex: showing literature as an expression of spiritual, social and economic processes in their progressive development. This means that literary history has radically changed its role and purpose, trying to penetrate deeply to the foundations of social phenomena, creative impulses, etc. Objectivist registration can no longer be its distinguishing feature. It now aims to provide a broad panorama of the literary and spiritual life of peoples in different eras, to shed light on literary, and hence social, sociological problems from our point of view. It is true that literary history has its own methods and literary creation is examined in it with different intentions than poetics examines them. But in its current state, literary history already has a significantly comprehensive and generalizing character and connects a number of defining elements from individual literary sciences. If we decide to look for general historical works on Slavic literatures, written from such an aspect, they will turn out to be very few. And one of them, which in some respects strives to meet these requirements, is the two-volume "Essays on the History of Slavic Literatures" by Prof. Dr. Emil Georgiev.

In the lively discussions about Karavelov's worldview and work in recent years, the Soviet philosopher Lev Valentinovich Vorobyov also intervened. His articles appeared in Bulgarian scientific publications, magazines and newspapers, which suggested resourceful and original thought, an open-minded attitude towards facts, controversial concepts and their authors. In 1962, his book "Philosophical and Sociological Views of Lyubena Karavelova" was published. The following year, the monograph "Lyuben Karavelov. Worldview and Work" appeared. The two studies, with certain compositional changes, represent the doctoral dissertation of L. V. Vorobyov, which he defended in June 1962 in Kiev. While in the first book the researcher is exclusively interested in the ideology of the Bulgarian revolutionary, the second study gives a comprehensive idea of ​​Karavelov - the public figure, the writer, the encyclopedist. Without belittling the value of "Philosophical and Sociological Views of Lyubena Karavelova", we will express our opinion on the second book of the Soviet scientist. In it, the author thoroughly presents all his observations and conclusions, which are also the subject of his first study.

I wouldn't call Kamen Kalchev's new novel a "coup" in the writer's development, but it is undoubtedly a pleasant surprise. An author who has been visibly gaining momentum lately has reached a higher point of creative self-realization. It is hardly correct to say that he has surpassed himself. Rather, he has surpassed certain ideas of criticism about his creative possibilities. Because even in his most contemporary books in terms of subject matter, in his most noble responsiveness to the conflicts of the current day, Kalchev satisfied critical demands halfway, kept critical approvals at a very moderate level.

"Either good or nothing." Perhaps there are authors who prefer the Latin maxim - aut bene, aut nihil - to apply to their works. But for conscious authors, for true people of the arts, for people who do not write and print just to see their name under the title of some printed work, indifference is the greatest insult. In fact, the maxim of the wise Romans applied to the dead. But a book, a work of art, is something living, dynamic, subject to development. One must say either good or bad about it, but something must be said and said in time. I believe that this is the duty of literary criticism. Until recently, authors, especially young ones, after seeing their works printed, waited with fear and excitement to hear or read what the critics thought of them. And the critics were usually silent. It did not seem to consider it its duty to deal with newly published books, to seriously evaluate the undertakings of young authors. The established critics in particular preferred to print long and exhaustive expositions of our old, well-known authors, of Zhinzifov or Dobri Chintulov, of course, of Botev and Vazov, reaching as far as Yavorov and Yovkov. Young authors could not count, as the young Russian writers of the time did, on hearing the voice of Dobrolyubov, Belinsky and Pisarev, on seeing their works subjected to analysis by our established critics, on feeling a sure hand opening the way to literary horizons for them. Fortunately, nowadays, literary criticism and assessments of young, new authors, of poems, stories and novels, have begun to appear more regularly in our literary newspapers and magazines. Of course, not as often and regularly as for any kind of film, but still it is a joyful phenomenon and I am confident that it has a beneficial effect, when critical or negative, on the development of our literary talents.

I trust these critics, who bring with them the atmosphere of art, its wonderful hypnosis. In recent years, they have become more and more numerous. There is no smell of office mold or annoying lecturer's edification from them. They displace from the consciousness of my generation the idea of ​​criticism as a prototype of Chekhov's man in a case, which had become entrenched in our country from the boring syllogisms of high school textbooks and christami from a dozen years ago... They do not talk to readers from a podium. Academic dignity is alien to them. With their infectious enthusiasm, with their strange, unceasing fervor, they resemble the artists from poor attic studios, where, amidst the scattered motley of paints, canvases, and cheap furniture, endless passionate arguments about art take place, wine is drunk and new poems are recited, dancing is madly done, and rebellious avant-garde manifestos are read under the attic vaults...

I will not hide that I was moved at the time by this book - The Price of Gold". I touched the exalted soul of the unknown author, the assertive, angry, music cut into sharp and metallic sounds that does not flow, but drags you along with it. As if everything is a revelation that is impossible not to make. And I did not dare to write a single line! This story was so intimate and personal that it forced you to listen to it rather than discuss it. Later I met the author. It turned out that the first impression of the book was not accidental. That it really poured out the entire subjectivity of this man - nervous and painfully acute, with a subtle sense of beauty. It is impossible to talk calmly with Gencho Stoev. He keeps you on your guard, always challenges you and makes you argue. He assesses every fact from his own angle, makes it more unusual, by taking it out of the usual order. Being in his consciousness becomes a movement towards his inner understanding of the beautiful. Always conflicting! Harmony blinds his eyes and this makes him desire it even more ardently. That is why reconciliation touches him less often. His suffering is as if second nature. I have the feeling that G. Stoev is constantly self-analyzing, but not only to make an accurate assessment, but also to provoke pain, self-torment, reproach to himself and the world, in order to experience irritation, which increases the internal tension of thought.

His party and Rems comrades are among us. They not only remember "Vaskata" from Hayredin, but deep in their hearts they keep his example of a selflessly devoted comrade, of a selfless party fighter, of a passionate publicist and writer. They have preserved in their memory the light of his bright image and always point out to us his feat as a citizen, a revolutionary and an artist. They always speak of him with respect, with admiration, with adoration. But..... and with great pain. They sincerely regret that their wonderful comrade in battle with the enemy leaves his bones by the turbulent waters of the Ogosta and does not manage to develop as a fiction writer, despite his undeniable talent. They mourn the heartfelt enthusiast, the ardent bonsist, the inventive illegal activist, the organizer of the partisan movement... But they are also proud of him, because he is a standard-bearer of the generation that today fertilizes our literature. Next to him, in the ranks of the immortals, are Tsvetan Spasov, Atanas Manchev, Hristo Karpachev, Kiril Madzharov, Hristo Kozlev, Ivan Nivianin, Marko Angelov, Toncho Staevski and many others.

The historical fate of the Bulgarian people has not been particularly favorable for the free and full expression of its intellectual and creative potential. Nevertheless, the national conquests in various fields of knowledge, of spiritual life in general, give us every reason to be proud, to present ourselves with dignity to the outside world. In less than a hundred years of independent national and political life, scientific thought has developed with rare intensity and today we can already compete with other advanced nations with dignity. Therefore, all the greater are the merits of those pioneers of scientific research who had to plow virgin lands, to blaze trails, especially in the field of Bulgarian studies. They were destined to overcome innumerable obstacles of every nature, to overthrow layered prejudices, to dispel the fog with which some wanted to veil our nationality. The primary task of the people of humanitarian scientific thought was to bring our centuries-old cultural heritage out of oblivion, to reveal the cultural-historical, moral-aesthetic riches of previous eras, to study and make known the spiritual conquests of new generations, to clear the way and create the necessary prerequisites for further advancement. And considering that the ruling circles in Newly Liberated Bulgaria, caught up in political disputes, in a race to get rich, did not care about the fate of people possessed by higher spiritual impulses, of the creative intelligentsia, the feat of those who, striving for new spiritual horizons, devoted themselves to scientific research activities in order to shed light on the diverse problems related to the past, present and future of our people, will stand out even more clearly. That is why our gratitude to these builders of a new cultural Bulgaria, who went through many trials, but remained faithful to their calling, to their national duty - to elevate our national scientific thought to the level of advanced cultural nations, is today all the greater and historically justified.

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.

With "Two in the New Town" Kamen Kalchev enters the spiritual world of the ordinary person, reaches psychological generalizations, subordinated to a broad ideological concept. K. Kalchev proves that he is a writer with a wide range of creative interests, that he discovers something more in the thoughts and feelings of people of our time, presents the drama of the person from our society. His hero is placed in a contemporary setting, and this already determines his behavior, revealed in the aspect of social development. There is nothing tragic if the hero experiences his drama, the main thing is in the name of what he does this, what he is guided by. And Marin Maslarski is guided by humane feelings, by the thought of being useful, of being a person above all.