Алеко

In two meetings - on September 29 and October 13 of this year, the Scientific Council at the Institute of Literature in an expanded composition discussed the work of Alexander Nichev on Aleko Konstantinov. The work has a monographic character and includes the following sections: Introduction: Biography; Literary Attempts; To Chicago and Back; Bai Ganyu; Feuilletons; Poetics; Aleko Konstantinov and Bulgarian Social Democracy. The reviewers Emil Stefanov and Rozalia Lykova evaluate Nichev's work as the first comprehensive scientific monograph on the life and work of our great writer. They see its positive qualities both in the collection of valuable and in many respects new factual material, and in the analysis of this material. "Everywhere in his book, Nichev has carefully, in detail, and with the necessary arguments explained Aleko's ideological and political development," emphasizes Emil Stefanov. "For the first time in our Literary History, Aleko's ideological positions have been widely and thoroughly examined and explained."

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

Aleko Konstantinov belongs to the generation of writers from the 1990s, which has immortalized itself for generations. And that - both with the criticism of social reality and with the fresh poetics of the artistic form. The works of "the most cheerful Bulgarian writer were born in the midst of sharp social struggles. In them, an image of a distant reality stands out. But they are not history. Because their author, having penetrated the depths of humanity, has captured characters and spiritual movements that carry typical human traits, immortal, secrets" of Mammon's passion. Because in them one can see the captivating artistry of a writer with a delicately gentle, exquisitely noble spirit.

The great creators of artistic values ​​are the few people marked by fate who outlive their time, cross the borders of many countries, attract attention, evoke the admiration and gratitude of more than one generation. The great charming power and eternal significance of these creative personalities are as significant and comprehensive as the more organic the connection between artistic achievements and social behavior, between ideological and aesthetic insights and civic and ethical aspirations. Such people, like a beacon, attract the eyes of all who live with the impulses of a more intense life, are possessed by higher ideals of social progress and moral elevation. Readers of different generations and eras turn to the work of such creators in order to relate to what they have achieved as artists and citizens. Getting to know their mental and emotional world, their trials, insights and conquests serves as a support and prerequisite for further development of national and universal literature and culture. Such a charming personality is undoubtedly the great citizen-humanist and writer-realist Aleko Konstantinov.

Recently, Alexander Nichev published a monographic study dedicated to the work of Aleko Konstantinov. Much has been written about the life and literary work of the citizen and writer Aleko. "Bai Ganyo" and "To Chicago and Back" are classic works of Bulgarian prose, a lasting artistic document against a denied world. A document that does not preach despair, doom and fear and, despite the denial of an ugly and deformed reality, has a purifying and ennobling effect. "The Lucky One" is a figure that attracted not only the writer's contemporaries, but still has a charm on us today.

Bulgarian history after the Liberation is dramatic and oppressive. The selfless patriotism of the Bulgarian National Revival was replaced by ruthless partisan struggles, which brought to the surface unscrupulous careerists and gangsters, dark characters like Vazov's Gorolomov and Alekov's Bai Ganyo. With bitter irony, Vazov called this period an era that nursed great people. In vain did his Kardashev seek romantic plots. Reality offered him only vulgarity, vulgar accounting, and crime. No matter how biased Irecek's assessments may be in places, in his diary he still faithfully captured the degeneration of political morals in the young principality, the rampant passions for power and material well-being. "People are ready with inner rage to throw stones at anyone, recklessly;..." "A person who does not lie and does not slander others, here is something extraordinary, a miracle of the world..."2 The young Czech scientist was shocked by the selfishness of the rulers with whom he was in constant contact. On the pages of his diary we repeatedly encounter such statements: "A person will become dull. .No longing, no idealism, no enthusiasm. I have fallen away. A desperate struggle against stupidity... A person becomes a misanthrope". Of course, in this miserable world there also live bright personalities, with Renaissance idealism, such as Petko Slaveykov, Vasil Drumev, Petko Karavelov, Vazov, Pencho Slaveykov, Aleko Konstantinov, Svetoslav Milarov, Olimpiy Panov, Trayko Kitanchev and others. They actively participate in political life, but its appearance is given by self-forgetful tyrants like Stambolov and Stoilov. The power is in their hands and with the most brutal means they neutralize their ideological enemies. Because of his love for Russia, boldly expressed in a church sermon, Metropolitan Kliment (Vasil Drumev), is threatened with a death sentence, which is commuted to 15 years in prison and eternal exile. Petko Karavelov spent years in the Black Mosque, Svetoslav Milarov, Atanas Uzunov, Olimpiy Panov, Alexander Karagyulev and others. They perish at the will of Stambolov, and later a villainous bullet from an ambush pierces Aleko's heart. Stambolov had found a brazen justification for the lawlessness and murders - that he was committing them out of inner conviction, and his successor Konstantin Stoilov called the violence of his district governors and gendarmes "exerting a moral influence on citizens". In the young principality there are no obstacles to the development of capitalism. But due to its lateness, due to the lack of democratic traditions, this development takes on the most ugly forms.

The problem of the connections of Bulgarian writers with the world masters of the artistic word and more specifically with the Russian ones is of important methodological and practical importance. Today everyone agrees that in the development of Bulgarian literature - classical and contemporary - bright examples of typological and contact phenomena are found. That is why it is especially necessary to indicate the nature of this influence and it is with each individual author, since this will shed additional light on the literary process as a whole. In this sense, the legacy of Aleko Konstantinov hides very interesting, still incompletely studied literary material. His work shows its own specific features, and along with them also carries the common: close acquaintance with the works of Pushkin and Lermontov, Gogol and Turgenev, Nekrasov and Shchedrin, as well as some basic principles in the aesthetics of Belinsky, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov - help our author to grow as a significant national writer. But they only guide him! Because, as I said, Aleko Konstantinov is an original Bulgarian satirist and feuilletonist. First and foremost, he relies on our national literature, no matter how scarce it was in terms of works and traditions at that time. All his works grow on our soil, they are an exciting echo of the social quests of our people in the 80s and 90s of the last century.