Поезията

Poetry is the leading principle in the artistic culture of our people. And this is undoubtedly one of the main features of our national character. The poetic temperament of the Bulgarian people has manifested itself in all spheres of life. However, with the greatest and most concentrated force, it has manifested itself in the field of poetic literary creation. In the mountain range of our literature, the most numerous and highest peaks belong to poetry. And if a few years ago the conquests of our artistic prose exceeded the conquests of poetry, then recently we have again witnessed the undeniable rise of poetic creativity. A new wave of creative successes has raised its crest in our poetry - a whole series of poets from different generations have created books that have found a strong and spontaneous response in the hearts of the widest circle of readers. These books draw the line of a very interesting and characteristic phenomenon of our poetry today, into which we are obliged to look, to explain its inner meaning, to realize the lessons hidden in it. The creative successes of our poetry, which are in question, were born not because of the application of revisionist recipes for "refreshing" artistic creativity, not because of the refusal or deviation of poets from the fundamental principles of our contemporary literature. These successes, in their ideological and artistic essence, mean the strengthening and further development of socialist realism in our poetry, the unfolding of its possibilities, and on the other hand - overcoming, precisely on this solid foundation, some dogmatic prejudices and schematic stratifications in views and creative practice. In other words, in recent years our poetry has been making serious and effective efforts to participate in its own specific way and in its own irreplaceable way even more actively in the communist education and re-education of the people, by mastering in a versatile and diverse way the truth of life, the truth of real experiences, of the living, rich and complex spiritual experience of our contemporaries. With this, it becomes more necessary to readers, more deserving of their trust and appreciation, more sought after and respected by them.

The 125th anniversary of the birth of Rayko Zhinzifov is a good occasion to look at him again as a poet and to indicate the place of his poetry in our literature, more precisely in our literary history, insofar as this place cannot yet be considered fully established. Our interest in our Revival, a truly important era in the development of our people, on the one hand, and our love for the literary heritage of those who created Bulgarian poetry, on the other, are a constant stimulus to return to his poetic image, to seek a living or historical meaning for his poems, to republish his poetic heritage, despite the voices of denial of his poetic gift that have been heard more than once. Assessments of Zhinzifov's poetry have been very contradictory since its appearance. While Lyuben Karavelov greeted the "New Bulgarian Collection", published in 1863, with a negative review (printed in the newspaper "Bulgarian Bee", issues 7, 8 and 9), Vasil D. Stoyanov pointed to its author as the most gifted among the young poets. This high assessment of Zhinzifov, given in an early critical study on contemporary Bulgarian literature, which remained unknown in our country because it was printed in Czech, in the central organ of Czech science and culture of that time - the Journal of the Czech Museum, is interesting. "Zhinzifov is still very young - writes here the future secretary of the Bulgarian Literary Society, which grew into the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences after the Liberation - and we can hope that in due time he will become a famous Bulgarian poet, and a lyrical poet, if Amor and the Bulgarian Villas do not abandon him. "1

The great poet resembles the sea: the more the diver enters into it, the deeper it becomes, the more wonderful and unsuspected beauties its depths reveal. We experience the same feeling when we want to stir up that wonderful peace of ideological and artistic values ​​that we call the poetry of Hristo Smirnenski. Four decades ago, the "discoverer" of Smirnenski as a poet and his first enthusiastic critic - Georgi Bakalov wrote about him: "He was a poet. A true poet. A juicy poet, as they say. A poet who is rarely born... There is no other poet in our country after Botev as popular among the masses as Smirnenski. The names of the two Hristovtsi are inseparably linked in the consciousness of the masses. Inseparable in immortality.

A number of talented poets, prose writers, and critics who had previously been captives of formalism and modernism entered contemporary Argentine progressive literature. These writers with a wide creative range, such as the literary critic and philosopher Aníbal Ponce, the fiction writers Raúl Lara and Álvaro Junque, the poets José Portogallo and José Pedroni, etc., had to thoroughly experience the false incarnations of idealistic thinking in order to subsequently see the profound truths of Marxist-Leninist ideology. A decisive role was played by the impetus of the ongoing events, especially the influence of the great ideas of the October Socialist Revolution of 1917 and the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939. Only then were they inspired and motivated by such a bright singer of the revolution as Vladimir Mayakovsky, as well as by the notable poets of the progressive world as Paul Eluard, Pablo Neruda, Louis Aragon, and others.

The name of Nikola Vassilev Rakitin is one of the purest and most humane names in Bulgarian poetry. His poems have not lost their original freshness even today, they breathe in the unadulterated aroma of the Bulgarian land and nature, they exude warm love and sympathy for the people, for their work and their dreams for a better life. They are permeated with a sincere, healthy attachment to the poet's native land and village, which he once left, but did not erase from his heart. Rakitin's songs are simple and heartfelt, cheerful and optimistic, but at the same time hiding a kind of quiet sadness and resignation. "Amidst so much sorrow in the world, I wanted to bring a little serenity and joy with my poems," the poet wrote. And he fulfilled this secret wish of his, leaving Bulgarian poetry songs in which his modesty and kindness, humanity and simplicity, the charm of a sincere and dedicated person and poet are preserved.

Elin Pelin once said that everything said about love is true. This thought of the writer can also be transferred to the field of poetry. Everything said about poetry by those who are excited by it is true. Although no one has given an accurate, clear, short and acceptable to all formulation of the concept of poetry. However, it exists as the immortal soul of humanity, every day it is reborn in a different way through the muses of its individual creators. And no pessimistic theories and vulgarizations can cancel it. It exists and will exist as long as there are people. When flowers bloom and birds sing, they obviously enjoy life, glorify existence. And the silent and incredible in variety sounds of colors and the inimitable trills of birds aim at communication, their meaning and continuation of the genus, overcoming death. Although both inanimate flowers and animate birds are hardly aware of their impulses.

Poetry, if we look at it as a device that measures the displacement of the social and internal psychological layers in the human psyche, we will have to decide that it is, above all, the most sensitive device suitable for such measurements. It may not give the full and profound picture of the event, as a novel will, but on the other hand it will react first, it will react immediately, remaining closest to the authenticity of human, I emphasize human experiences. They will not have found a convincing comparison on the scale of the overall movement of causal connections, but they will always have the freshness of a direct tape recording. This "device" can thus be considered the most accurate on the scale of science, because by capturing most accurately the state of a collected person in one collected moment, it will be able to approach most accurately the true picture, the continuous movement of the world, its ideological integrity, projected as freely interpreted art.