Литературна

Over the past five or six years, literary scholarship in the Soviet Union has been undergoing a real renewal. One only has to think how many mistakes and misconceptions, how many incorrect views have been overcome in this short time! And the timid tone, and the empirical character of Literary Criticism, and the recurrence of a narrow Rappian conception of literature, and the intolerable backwardness of aesthetic and literary-theoretical thought, and often blatantly lowered aesthetic criteria. It seems as if the times were long gone when collections of current literary-critical articles and monographic essays on Soviet writers could be counted on the fingers; when there were no comprehensive studies of new Russian and Soviet literature, and no generalizing works on realism and socialist realism were written. The books that were published did not cover all literary phenomena, the more complex ones were overlooked, and entire periods of the history of Russian literature - for example, the late 19th and early 20th centuries - remained insufficiently illuminated. A number of circumstances prevented a more objective view and a more understanding assessment of even such a phenomenon as the proletarian poetry of the first years of Soviet power, not to mention the poetry of Blok and Yesenin or the satirical work of Ilfi Petrov. Writers who had played a significant role in literary life at the time were excluded from literary development. And as a natural result of all this, along with clever and serious books, illustrative, primitive-sociological writings began to appear one after another, flooded with an abundant number of quotations, behind which hid the lack of independent creative thought, of the ability to subtly and inspiredly penetrate artistic phenomena (which is associated with a natural gift, with a vocation), of truly profound knowledge.

In world literary history, there are artists whose historical significance becomes more and more evident with the passage of time, who push for reflection, for new quests of the mind and heart. Such a notable personality is V. G. Belinsky, 150 years since the birth of whom today the progressive public from all countries marks with gratitude, making new efforts to delve into the rich heritage of this great son of the Russian people in order to establish the impact of his revolutionary-political, theoretical-philosophical, literary-critical thought on and later generations. contemporaries Having passed an instructive path of ideological and creative development, Belinsky stands on the most progressive positions of his time, understands the needs and tasks of the era, strives for new revolutionary concepts of social, ethical and aesthetic values. Many of the principles he established still resonate today with undiminished force, have lost none of their vital relevance, and serve as the basis for further research. Belinsky's multifaceted and rich work seems to embody the comprehensive spirituality of the great Russian people, as if the socio-political, moral-philosophical, and literary-theoretical problems of the era are gathered. The insights of the great thinker cut through the gloomy atmosphere of bourgeois-landlord Russia like lightning - groaning and struggling against oppression and injustice, against the Nicholas monarchical dictatorship, and outline the radiant horizons to which human thought has been striving for centuries. What excited and worried his contemporaries, what flashed in the minds of honest people, disturbed the squeamish consciences of all sorts of oppressors of the human person, manifests itself in Belinsky with astonishing power, to charm and inspire the wronged, to frighten those in power. His articles take up the most pressing issues of the time, are met as a revelation. In them one feels the bubbling of an immense energy, the daring of a penetrating thought, the rebellion of a restless civic pathos of a loving heart.

1961 Booklet 6 *** - Contents of the 5th anniversary of "Literary Thought" - 1961

On March 29 and April 2 of this year, an extended meeting of the scientific council was held at the Institute of Literature at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, at which the five-year activity of the journal “Literary Thought and the perspective plan for 1962” was discussed. Present were: Prof. Georgi Tsanev, Prof. Pantelei Zarev, Prof. Petar Dinekov, Prof. Emil Georgiev, Prof. Mihail Arnaudov, Prof. Stoyan Karolev, the scientific secretary of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Stoyko Bozhkov, Snezha Avramova from the founding party committee at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, senior scientific associates Georgi Dimov, Krastyo Genov and Efrem Karanfilov, scientific associates Iskra Panova, Minko Nikolov, Ivan Tsvetkov, Boyan Nichev, Krastyo Kuyumdzhievi who became associates of the institute. In his report, the editor-in-chief P. Zarev addressed the participants in the discussion with an appeal for the most active participation and careful assessment of the five-year activity of the magazine, in order to help the editorial board improve the writing of "Literary Thought", to enrich it and make it more interesting for the reader. He noted the particularly favorable time in which the discussion is taking place and the new inspiring tasks that the XXII Congress of the CPSU set for literary science and the overall development of socialist society. What had been started since the XX Congress of the CPSU was now confirmed with new, even more powerful force and persuasiveness: clearing away everything old and stifling that prevents the material and spiritual forces of the new system from unfolding and opening up new horizons for socialism, for the international communist movement, for socialist thought. B. emphasized the need to enrich the cultural and spiritual life of socialist society, to make new achievements in this direction, and pointed out the ways for the further development of socialist democracy and the complete elimination of the methods created during the cult of personality.

1962 Booklet 6 *** - Contents of the 4th anniversary of the magazine "Literary Thought" - 1962.

Like any science, literary history "is not only a system of concepts (categories, laws). Science is always at the same time a method of knowledge. It is always not only already achieved knowledge, but also knowledge-process, knowledge-aspiration, knowledge arising from practice... 1 As for the subject of literary history, its system, the question is relatively clear - this is (generally speaking) our literary heritage. And insofar as disputes are still being waged here whether a given third-rate writer or a completely insignificant work should be included in it - then in essence these are again disputes about the method, not about the system, since in its conclusions and laws it only consolidates the results of the method. While the system is the conservative, restraining side in the process of knowledge, the method is the revolutionary, creative one. It moves science forward, it opens up new paths for it. That is precisely why now, when our literary studies - as well as all sociological sciences - are faced with new, grandiose tasks in connection with the upbringing of the new man, the man of communism, the question of method becomes so important. In fact, this is a question of the future of literary history, of its transformation into an effective, active social force. Method is an eternal movement - despite its relative definiteness, it is constantly changing and developing in order to meet the new needs, the new tasks that modernity sets before literary history. That is why the question of sociology and dogmatism in literary criticism did not arise by chance. The acute form in which it was posed is a reflection of the sharp need for a radical transformation of our literary science in order to be able to respond to its new tasks.

The Bulgarian-Soviet Friendship is multifaceted - in politics, in economics, in culture, including in literature. It, our literary friendship with the Russian people and with the other peoples of the Soviet country, has deep roots and is a peer of the cultural history of our two countries. It is no coincidence that copies of the oldest Bulgarian manuscripts, dating back to the beginning of our writing, are found in a number of Soviet libraries. With affection we read in the ancient "Alphabetical Prayer" - this foundation of all Bulgarian poetry - verses addressed to the entire "Slavic tribe". This common appeal over the centuries rightly acquired a main focus on the largest Slavic people - the Russians, who became the support and foundation of the cultural development of all Slavic and many non-Slavic peoples. When I was in Ukraine in 1959, during the decade of Bulgarian culture, Kiev writers and literary scholars proudly pointed out the places connected in distant historical memory with the Bulgarian writer Grigoriy Tsamblak: we imagine him living among his colleagues from Kiev at the beginning of the fifteenth century, how in meetings with them they spoke the then common literary Slavic language - and yet they knew that he was Bulgarian, and spoke words of praise for the Bulgarian literary work, already famous throughout the world. Five centuries of slavery did not obscure, but strengthened the literary community of our peoples: the names of Botev, Karavelov, Nesho Bonchev and our other revivalists are most closely associated with Russian culture. Both during the six decades of bourgeois Bulgaria and during the two decades of Fatherland Front Bulgaria, this area of ​​cultural and literary friendship accumulated new and new facts and phenomena, and established itself as a law of our literary development. Today, Soviet literature is for us that beacon which illuminates with bright flashes our entire literary life.

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.

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.

The liberation of Bulgaria from centuries of Ottoman oppression opens up wide opportunities for the unleashed national spiritual and creative energy. Having manifested itself with unsuspected force and so brightly during the last decades of the glorious Renaissance era, now with the changes in socio-political life it marks new significant successes in various fields of knowledge. The cultural-historical, literary-artistic, critical-aesthetic traditions of the Renaissance are being revived and rethought, in accordance with the new social reality. It also nourishes the emergence of new phenomena and trends. Although the liberation of 1878 created a new stage in the socio-political and socio-economic development of the Bulgarian people, in the field of spiritual and intellectual activity during the decade immediately after the Russo-Turkish War, we are witnesses of a very broad ideological and aesthetic continuity. Here, the processes seem to continue in the same direction, they show greater vitality, their pace is not so rapid.

Critical thought in our country seems to be in a feverish hurry to catch up with what has been missed, to reduce the delay left as a legacy from years of inaction or stagnation. Discussions, discussions. And many new books by critics - with new and old works in them. Bogomil Nonev has called his collection "Critical Chronicle 1960-1965". He pays special attention to the literary critic and his work, examining this topic in a separate article. But the entire book of Nonev raises some questions of the stylistics of literary criticism. With the temperamental characteristics, with the defense of Aragon's innovation in the novel "Holy Week" Nonev involuntarily defends his existence in criticism. The mixture of genres, the use of various means and forms - even an entire essay on Caravaggio's painting - in Aragon's novel has led to interesting artistic solutions. Without making any analogy with the results and their significance, I will say that the symbiosis of elements of criticism and journalism in the style of Bogomil Nonev shapes his authorial capabilities, determines the achievements and weaknesses of his style. It is difficult, it seems to me even impossible, to precisely delineate the boundary between criticism and journalism, between criticism and other genres of artistic creativity. In each author, his tendency to a certain way of perceiving and experiencing the work prevails, lyrical, journalistic or fiction features dominate in his style. At one point in his book, Bogomil Nonev says that "... the literary critic is a thinker, a journalist and an artist". The emphasis in his articles falls most strongly on the second of these qualities.

Bulgarian literary criticism during the Revival attracted the least researchers of our classical heritage. Indeed, there are special studies on Karavelov and Botev, on Drumev and Nesho Bonchev. On various occasions, some literary historians and theorists have touched upon the issues of Revival aesthetic thought. However, the need for a comprehensive study has long been felt, which would enrich the not-so-complete and accurate ideas about literary criticism during the Revival, point out new names and facts, and seek the principles that determine the attitude of the Revival writer to literary phenomena. Such a work, of course, requires not only persistent and continuous work - a study of the periodical press, archival funds, and individual editions. Basically, one must also know Russian and Western European aesthetic thought of this period in order to be able to trace the nature of the influences, to distinguish the original from ordinary imitation. It is necessary to study both the original and translated literature, to see whether each given assessment meets an objective criterion.

"Tears of Lily" - pale and in many cases clumsy imitations of the sentimental direction in Heine's lyrics - Pencho Slaveykov wrote in his hospital bed in 1886-87. He himself repeatedly pointed out the weakness of this poetry of his, in order to highlight "Epic Songs" as the mature beginning of his work. But in Slaveykov, as in our poetry at its beginning (until Karavelov and Botev), we can notice that where this beginning is in the spirit and form of written poetry, it is still clumsy and inept - and once the poet has touched the living source of all poetry, folk poetry, his verses resonate with the power of a fresh artistic image. Thus, even before he had modeled his literary experiments ("Momini Salzi") on a book model, Slaveykov in 1885 was inspired by folk-poetic images and wrote his poem "Lud Gidiya". It is no coincidence that when he later collected his poems for "Epic Songs", he put "Lud Gidiya" in the first place in this collection... For several centuries, the people have created the image of the cheerful man of art, who plays the tambourine with intoxication from aesthetic pleasure. This image is picturesque: the young Stoyan hung this empty tambourine on his belt" and as he played, "the brides broke the robbery - the old hurks crushed" - and even the judge, to whom the people complained that they could not do their work because of the "empty tambourine", was carried away by the power of art. Instead of judging the young gypsy, "they became kadiyas to play - you're a furley binish in a chamber - you're a furley hat on beams"....With such a relief-shaped and elaborate folklore image, the young poet, barely 19 years old, wrote a poem inspired by it. The verse, close to the folk-syllabic, easily succumbed to him.

Due to centuries of foreign oppression, the Bulgarian nation underwent a peculiar socio-historical development. Our national revival began only in the second half of the 18th century. However, cultural and historical processes have become particularly intense since then. In just one century (1762-1878), national creative thought went through several stages, only to soon rise to great heights. Continuing the traditions of the Revival, literary science from the beginning of our century quickly expanded its problematic, adopting reliable principles for a more comprehensive interpretation of cultural and aesthetic phenomena and processes. Both the great writers and critics of the Revival, and the few academically educated literary scholars after the Liberation, demonstrated a number of correct understandings regarding the diverse prerequisites for the formation of the Bulgarian national culture and literature, regarding the interrelationships and interdependence of the ideological and artistic phenomena of the individual peoples. Directing their research gaze towards the problems of our national revival, the first great Bulgarian literary historians realized that they could not be comprehensively and truthfully illuminated if one did not take into account similar processes and phenomena in neighboring countries - Greece, Serbia, Romania, Russia, with which our people communicated in different ways, through diverse forms.

TODAY, and apparently since yesterday, it is almost unknown in our country. We do not know the essence and functions of Czech and Slovak literary criticism, we do not know about its relations to literary theory and history and, of course, to aesthetics, as well as to sociology, psychology and philosophy, about its connections to cultural policy and the social situation. And the long-standing disputes and polemics, especially of the last ten years, would tell us a lot about its subject, method and criterion, about the contribution of literary critics, with a unique creative expression and with a sharp eye for general and characteristic tendencies of literary development in Czechoslovakia. It is necessary to present in our country this complex of problems of contemporary Czech and Slovak literary and critical thought, at least in the most characteristic creative expressions. It is naive to assume that it can be revealed in separate, moreover, so sporadic, reviews and surveys. Today, our access to authentic material can be facilitated by the History of Czechoslovak Literary Criticism, by a significant number of anthologies with selected articles, essays, critical and analytical studies by prominent Czechoslovak literary scholars and writers, and not least by the high literary-theoretical and critical level of today's Czech and Slovak literary journals."

The stories "Bulgarians of Old Time", "Uncles" and "The Gerats" have preserved much of what makes up the color of our national life. The authors reproduce not only human thoughts and feelings, but also the atmosphere of the time. The stories, saturated with everyday details, have their historical conditioning. By virtue of this need for a dense transmission of the rich external world, the principle of the external plastic characteristics of the characters also plays a certain dominant role. The depiction of the circumstances that influence the life destiny of people stands out in the foreground. The character of the depiction is determined by the content of the selected vital material.

In Bulgarian literary and historical science after 1944, the question of the development of our literary theory and criticism is not new, it has not just arisen. As a research task, this question has been raised more than once and not by one or two Bulgarian literary historians. For various reasons, however, no work has been done in this direction. There are too few researchers who have occasionally paid attention to one or another moment in the history of Bulgarian literary criticism, theory and science. The only more systematic and comprehensive studies that have been published so far belong to Georgi Dimov, who works mainly in this scientific field.

The anniversaries of the birth or death of great and notable personalities, connected through their work with a certain era in the history of the cultural conquests of humanity, are a good occasion to put us in a "dialogue with the past", as the prominent French literary historian Professor Jean Pomier titled one of his works, and to allow us to look at their ideas, concepts, and influences from the standpoint of our modernity, with a view to seeing the place they have in the panorama of their national literature, as well as in the general panorama of world literature.