Принос

A citizen writer, a talented realist artist, despite separate periods of tortuousness and inconsistency, Anton Strashimirov actively participated in the struggle of the progressive forces of the people. All this determines the great interest of our literary and cultural community in his life and creative path. However, his first steps in the public sphere are still covered by the obscurity of the past decades. The only source for these years remains the autobiographical notes of the writer, printed in 1931. But in them he shed light primarily on his creativity, and devoted only a few lines to his public and political activities. There is fragmentary data about this period of the writer's life in some articles and monographs. But they cannot restore his participation and role in public life from the late eighties and early nineties of the last century. And as Professor Assen Zlatarov notes, it was from this time that Anton Strashimirov was baptized for the feat of the citizen.

The appearance of the book “On Some Peculiarities of Bulgarian Poetry 1923-1944” by Rozalia Lykova is an interesting phenomenon. This is an attempt to systematize the vast material on our poetic development for two decades, to outline the directions and give portraits of the significant representatives of our poetry at that time. The author Rozalia Lykova has studied the entire literary life of that time. She has encountered many problems, successfully and with arguments she has rejected a number of obsessions and errors in the evaluations of poetry. Her book has not remained at the level of what has been established and said so far. Although it is based on rich historical-literary and factual material, Lykova tries to supplement and enrich our ideas about the poets, to complete their creative image. In a certain sense, she moves forward the attitude of our literary history and criticism towards the work of these poets.

The meetings of the section for Slavic literatures until the end of the 17th century took place in a businesslike, creative atmosphere, with a marked interest in the presented reports and scientific communications. Most of them were accompanied by lively, fruitful discussions, in which prominent representatives of Slavic science took part, such as Prof. N. Gudziy ((USSR), Prof. D. S. Likhachev (USSR), Prof. J. Radojcic (Yugoslavia), Prof. R. Yagodich (Austria), etc. The above reports and learned communications were read, not including the four reports presented at the plenary session in honor of the 1100th anniversary of the work of Cyril and Methodius.

Until a few years ago, the 17th and 18th centuries were considered among the least studied periods of our literary development. Ignorance of the true state of literary life during these centuries led to an underestimation of one of the most interesting phenomena in our literature during Turkish slavery - the Bulgarian damascenes. Appearing as translations of the collection "Treasure" by Damaskin Studite in the second half of the 16th century, they gradually occupied a central place in literary practice in our country in the 17th and especially in the 18th century. Their compilers, initially translators and compilers, began to show creative daring, most clearly expressed in Paisius' contemporary - the damascene maker Joseph Beardati. Damaskin1 Al. Burmov. Was there a central revolutionary Bulgarian committee in Bucharest in 1769-1872? Historical Review, 1961, vol. 3, pp. 34-47. * Donka Petkanova-Toteva, The Damaskins in Bulgarian Literature, BAS, Sofia, 1965. 52 The literature of the Damaskins played an important role in the spiritual life of our lands and helped to speed up the emergence of the Revival consciousness in the lowlands. On its pages, along with the first enlightenment appeal, a critical and denunciatory attitude towards a number of phenomena of slave life appeared. From collections with a moral and instructive direction in the spirit of Christian virtues, they turned into works that were directly or indirectly related to the problems of the then reality.

In the era of the Bulgarian Revival, deep and diverse processes are taking place, which fill the socio-economic and spiritual life with new content. On the basis of the objectively created historical prerequisites, the Bulgarian nation is formed, with all those components that accompany its affirmation. In long-standing efforts for national individualization, for the conquest of political and cultural independence, it manifests itself with unsuspected vital energy. National social, scientific, aesthetic thought is rapidly gaining strength.

One of the characteristic features of the contemporary literary process is its genre diversity. This applies equally to both fiction and literary criticism. Artistic aspirations and generalizations, the searches and insights of historical-literary and critical thought find expression in various genres and forms, sometimes very heterogeneous, but nevertheless interesting as evidence of the richness of literary life, of the diversity of creative individuals, of the different paths that writers and literary critics take to reveal truths of an ideological-aesthetic, biographical-creative, moral, and emotional nature.