Народнически

Populist ideas penetrated Bulgarian literature in the late 1980s and mainly in the 1990s. Under the influence of the populist ideology, adopted by Russian public figures and populist writers, some writers created works that make up our populist literature. This literature is limited in scope and not particularly rich in the variety of genres, ideas and images. There are not always strictly defined "pure" populist frameworks. And with the gradual experience of populist ideas in the first decade of the new century, it ceases to be a topical issue in our literary reality. Therefore, the term "populist literature" should be accepted and understood quite conditionally and with reservations. The important thing is that the works of populist writers excited contemporaries. Created in that era when the overall national appearance of our post-liberation realistic literature was taking shape, they diversified its ideological and aesthetic wealth, contributing to the strengthening of democracy and humanism within it.

In his new book with the above title, Zhelyu Avdzhiev examines from Marxist-Leninist positions the aesthetic originality and place of populism and populist literature in the development of Bulgarian literature. Having correctly grasped the specifics of this characteristic phenomenon, the author invests enough energy to characterize it comprehensively and to point out its previously unexposed features, to present its most important representatives in a new light. In our country, there have been no deliberate discussions on the issues of the essence of populist literature, although these issues have interested many literary scholars, as a result of which they have been quite clarified and a considerable amount of literature has accumulated. In the work under consideration, however, the problems arising around the character and essence of populist literature are analyzed for the first time in such detail and exhaustively in a separate, independent monographic study. Until now, we have not had a comprehensive literary-historical study in which to examine the original character, specific development and unique essence of populist literature in Bulgaria. The work under consideration is precisely such a study, in which the author has set himself the task of thoroughly studying this literature, and in a newer direction.