Любовта

Veselin Yosifov has already written dozens of reviews, articles and critical notes, and has published a number of reports and talks. Written on different occasions and at different times, scattered across many newspapers and magazines, prefaces to publications, etc., in their entirety they outline a temperamental creative physiognomy, diverse interests and literary culture. And here, after so many years of work in the literary and critical field, he presented to the reader a very small part of them in a book entitled "Articles for Bulgarian Writers". Whether this is the best thing written by a critic is difficult to judge, but in any case it must confirm and illustrate his understanding of literature and criticism. I have heard it said about Yosifov that he has a sharp pen. And this is undoubtedly true. Because there are few of our critics who affirm or deny as sharply as he does. In all his works, "hate" and "love" are clearly visible. Therefore, for a critic like Veselin Yosifov, it seems to me, the words of S. S. Smirnov from his article "Notes on Criticism" are precisely appropriate: "The profession of criticism is perhaps the most ungrateful of all literary professions. Writers usually treat critics like drivers treat traffic police inspectors - they either respect them or fear them, but rarely love them."

From the years when the first "songs", "sighs" and "trembles" appeared, which speak of the youthful intoxication of the twenty-year-old poet (1894-97), to the "last fires" of the creative fire of his restless lyre (1944), five whole decades passed. In this half-century rich and complex period of the development of our literature, Kiril Hristov was a very active creator.

Recently, interest in Lermontov in the West has definitely grown. It cannot be compared with the campaign for Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, it is far from the feverish curiosity about Gogol, but it is already noticeable and emphasized enough. Lermontov is translated, read, here and there walks the theater ramp. People write and talk about him. Perhaps in this way the real significance of a great writer, comparatively less known to the Western intelligentsia, is being restored, perhaps the so-called "poet of disappointment" appeals to the fashionable decadent moods with his misinterpreted "spleen", with his deliberately accentuated and generalized dissatisfaction with life", with his clearly forced capitulation to the "demonic" forces of the world; Perhaps Lermontov is the last excavation of the modern "modern" from the unread antiquity "According to the established standard for the new as a well-forgotten old". There are many reasons for the resurrection of a great name. But, it seems to me, those listed so far do not explain an already long-standing interest, beyond simple snobbish fascinations.