Йордан

From the partial publications that were made in the periodical press over the past two decades, we already knew about the literary conversations that the late Professor Spiridon Kazandjiev had with Yordan Yovkov, and in general we had certain impressions of them. However, these impressions were based on partial acquaintance with the text and were naturally fragmentary in nature. That is why the recently published book "Meetings and Conversations with Yordan Yovkov", which contains almost entirely the diary of Professor Kazandjiev (I say almost, since some passages have been omitted from it), now comes to satisfy our curiosity and introduce us to the spiritual world of one of the great Bulgarian writers. Yordan Yovkov, as is known, was neither particularly talkative nor particularly accessible. He did not easily fall into revelations and did not like literary confessions. Therefore, it was difficult to penetrate his creative laboratory and find out what his assessment of people, events and books was. This is precisely what determines the value of the diary "Meetings and Conversations with Yordan Yovkov": it speaks of facts and moods that we cannot glean from any other source - facts and moods that shed light on some very important aspects of the author's life and work.

Of those among whom he began and continued his creative path, only three or four remain. They are the only ones who can testify to the truth of those distant years. In this journey through the past, things and people suddenly emerge - clear, categorical, devoid of any ambiguity, having acquired their true weight, without the need for any interpreters. The miracle of human memory returns to us that complete, self-existent world, the most real because it is the one of the time, in which even when we ourselves participated, we now remain more spectators than actors. For the dead, time has stopped, they do not age, and in our memory their existence remains more alive, because they are unchangeable. And for us, who knew Yordan Yovkov for almost a quarter of a century, from 1913 to 1937, he will forever retain his sharply outlined image, the same in the different aspects of those different years. He is the reserve lieutenant or captain in a marching greatcoat during the war years; he is the lonely man, sitting at his little table against the wall, in the upper section of the former Tsar-Liberator confectionery, and whose narrowed eyes thoughtfully pierce the smoke of his cigarette. He is all in that muffled, flowing, throaty laughter that gushes uncontrollably and infectiously amidst some always interesting border guard or hunting or military incident, sprinkled with those wonderful Turkish wisdoms for which he had a weakness and told by him with unattainable expressiveness and wit. It is in that phrase (inserted later in a feuilleton) with which, when he once explained why the socialists won the elections, he presented the peasant voter in front of the ballot box, who pushes a cap over one eyebrow, blinks mischievously and laughs: "Wait until I cast a red ballot, let's see what comes out!.. It is also in those words with which, before his departure for an official position in Bucharest, he answered my question - whether he was not sad that he was going to Romania, which had seized his beloved Dobrudja - words, and which echoed from the voice of his Seraphim -: "You know, I love them - the Vlachs..."

In September 1920, Yordan Yovkov was appointed by order of Prime Minister Alexander Stamboliyski as a clerk at the Bulgarian legation in Bucharest, where he spent about six years holding various positions: "press assistant", "secretary", and finally, as a "reward" for his conscientious work, due to the "lack" of the necessary qualifications, he had to fulfill the duties of... Dragoman". Despite his official employment and his difficult financial situation, in the Romanian capital he worked with true inspiration and for the joy of Bulgarian culture - he completed "The Song of the Wheels", wrote "Stara Planina Legends" and began "Evenings at the Antimov Inn". Yovkov's life in Bucharest, as his letters and the memories of his friends testify, was difficult and joyless. The plenipotentiary ministers at that time were Todor Nedkov, General Iv. Fichev, Georgi Kyoseivanov and Svetoslav Pomenov, who treated the writer with disdain and looked at him almost as an ordinary official, something more - as an imbecile. On various occasions, the writer wrote letters to his friends in his homeland, shared with them his difficult fate and rewarded them for small favors. Some of these letters were published in books and magazines and are known to the Bulgarian reader. (See Grigor Vassilev, "Yordan Yovkov", 1940 and "Unpublished Letters of Yordan Yovkov" magazine "Literary Thought", vol. 5, 1957).

The name of one writer almost always points us to the name of the other - so much so that we feel connected in time and in the nature of their work. Elin Pelin and Yovkov are almost the same age: the former is three years older than the latter and lived twelve years after him. Both were born and raised in a village, but in different Bulgarian regions that are not similar. Elin Pelin is from Western Bulgaria, a child of a stubborn Shopian environment, among which he built his basic worldview and character, although after his twenty-third year (1900) he lived only in the capital, while Yovkov has longer and stronger roots in the village. The latter was nursed and spent his childhood in the wilderness of the Balkans - Zheravna; - and his adulthood - in flat Dobrudzha, near the border, where he taught until the Balkan War, so that he spent about thirty years of village life.