Емилиян

Everyone enters literature in their own way. Especially when they have something significant to leave behind. Emilian Stanev came to our white trist of the thirties with the tedious boredom of gray guild workdays and with the fresh breeze of dense forests, of young game and wild licorice. And in these two such different worlds he managed to find his theme in our literature, his inviolable aesthetic perimeter. And he transformed them into his own aesthetic peace. The relationship between man and nature became the main axis around which his work revolved. And in him the complex image of an original artist came to life. He is very contradictory and at the same time unified. Here, he would have been a pantheist, if he had not been too much of a skeptic and rationalist; he is a stern and cool observer of nature and a gentle, restrained poet of its beauty, a calm portrayer of the guild and a merciless critic of the guild, a skeptic by mind and a poet by heart", as one of his characters would say. The list of contradictory traits in his image could be increased. Those who know him closely present him as a constantly agitated and restless creator. But very little of this is visible behind the pages of his books. Can you imagine that the writer, who with such artistic ease masters his material and with such restrained tact always manages to maintain a distance between himself and his characters, cried when he wrote the chapter about Kolyo Rachikov in "Ivan Kondarev", in order to master a character, he needs to create an intimate, inner connection between himself and him. He is one of those artists who look for a way to his creatures everywhere - even through his own character. If Ibsen needed to see his character down to the last button of his coat in order to recreate him, Emilian Stanev is one of those writers who must see himself in this coat, feel the hero's blood in his veins, get into his skin. He experiences the character as a lyricist in order to imprint it as a strict fiction writer. He himself often likes to summarize this peculiarity of his talent in a paradox: "I could not capture anything in others that I do not carry within myself. The writer actually plays himself.

A few years ago, a fellow villager of mine, a passionate hunter, took me hunting with him. But it was only towards evening, when we were returning, that he signaled that he had seen something and whispered to me to stop and be silent. He aimed at the telephone wires. Two turtledoves were huddled on them, as if contemplating the increasingly pale, crimson west. One of them flinched and unexpectedly quickly left its companion. The other did not even notice, remaining motionless. At that moment a roar came from the rifle. The bird flew up in some last effort and fell rapidly, almost vertically, to the ground. Even the poor and dry vegetation of the stubble hid it. When my friend brought back the still fluttering bird, with its eyes painfully closed, in a moment we both looked at its half-open beak with shame. My fellow villager immediately came to his senses, picked up the turtledove, and began to tell incredible hunting stories. He was obviously thinking about what had happened as much as his wife had about the hen after he had cut off the rough woodcutter's head. I listened absently and remembered that moment B And Emilian Stanev's story, when the shot-shot squeaking jug flew in the same way, and the forest hid it from his eyes in order to conceal a murder. It was clear to me that my companion saw nothing particularly wrong with what had just happened, this story no longer concerned him. And why did Emilian Stanev seem to be haunted by such memories, why did he want to free himself from someone's intrusive gaze, why did he always talk about... murder in such cases? Was it not because of our gullibility that we mistakenly accepted these stories as "hunting"?

A short story with this title clearly reflects Emilian Stanev's view of life in nature, enduring features of his attitude to the world. Isn't it the key to the sources of his creative originality? There is nothing fairy-tale about the plot. On a moonless June night, a goldfinch sneaks into the nest of two finches, where the female warms her small, still naked offspring with her body. The bird wakes up and sees "the eyes of the little beast, which phosphoresced like two burning bluish-green abysses, but it continued to lie over the chicks, because a mother's love is stronger than death." Maybe this is a story about the power of a mother's love? No, only this restrained passage is dedicated to it. The author also describes the drama that unfolded, the death of the bird and its chicks with restraint: "Suddenly the golden eagle rushed forward, grabbed the nest in its paws, tore it off and fell with it onto a branch. There it sank its thin, needle-like teeth into the finch, which squealed. Then the little beast ate the bird and the naked chicks slowly, without rushing, as cats eat... Fed and already lazy, the golden eagle crawls into the hollow of the beech tree, where it falls asleep. "The beech leaves trembled soothingly, as if distant waters were rustling." Nothing unusual has happened, the June night is still as calm and beautiful, illuminated by the pale light of the stars. Even more beautiful is the morning when the forest awakens - endless and vast", the horizon is ablaze "with the advancing sunrise" and on the top of the huge beech, on its silvery bark, "fiery and orange spots" play. Its silky bosoms sway, in which the finch and her young perish at night. "Hirringly absorbing the sun's rays, the thousands of silky soft leaves trembled and rustled from top to bottom, as if the beech was laughing with joyful shivers..."

Here is a sixtieth anniversary that surprised many. Not that sixty years is a long time, but Emilian Stanev's vitality and cheerfulness can rightly be envied by both forty and thirty-year-olds. Everyone who has had the opportunity to meet and talk to him has been amazed not only by his appearance, his lush black, unscented hair, his always cheerful movements, but also by his extremely mobile and restless thought, his turbulent imagination, his extraordinary spiritual energy. Emilian. Stanev is not among the most prolific writers, but it is difficult to imagine another writer who is so constantly busy with his work: not only in his office, but also on the street, in the garden, in the club, in a circle of friends - everywhere. He seems unable to survive a single day without thinking and talking about art, about his work. And despite the great preliminary work of the mind and imagination, what an impressive amount of paper Emilian Stanev writes for each chapter of his works. His critical, weighing thought is vigilant at its post, demanding new and new revisions. He is tireless in his pursuit of perfection, he is dedicated and selfless as a creator, both young and old can take an example from him.

By the place that nature occupies in the work of a writer, we can reveal not only essential features of his appearance, but also some directions in the spiritual life of the era. There are authors who are insensitive to natural beauties. They are able to pass by a dazzlingly beautiful Alpine peak without interrupting their intellectual conversation, like the old Erasmus, or, standing in front of Niagara Falls, admire its energy more than its beauty, like the modern Steinbeck. We must not forget that writers from different schools and trends, as well as artists with different personalities, describe nature in different ways. The Romantics, for example, devoted a large place in their work to the delights of natural beauties. But how different are the hazy paintings of Chateaubriand - a dreamer and a contemplator - compared to the harsh, precise and strong descriptions of the officer Alfred de Vigny. Prishvin and Bianchi are almost contemporaries. But the lyrical excitement and confessions of the one are replaced by the bright, clear, full of philosophical generalizations of the other.