българо

The interest in the issues of Bulgarian-Serbian and Bulgarian-Croatian literary, cultural and ideological-political relations in the past is conditioned primarily by the rich content of these relations, by their scientific significance. Not only neighboring, but also with a relatively equal political fate, Bulgarians, Serbs and Croats followed very similar directions and traditions in their spiritual development for nearly a century. Even in the conditions of their political slavery they managed to use each other's experience and achievements in the field of culture to create original artistic values. The informed reader knows how characteristic in this respect is the literary activity of writers such as Konstantin Ognjanović, Petko Slavejkov, Ljuben Karavelov and Hristo Botev, Jovan Raič, Dositej Obradović, Vuk Karadžić, Jovan Sterija Popović, Ivan Kukuljević-Sakčinski, Petar Preradović, August Harambašić and others, whose works penetrated all South Slavic countries, accelerating the process of the formation and development of South Slavic literatures.

Bulgarian-Byzantine cultural and literary ties continued for several centuries. Undoubtedly, the main and dominant influence here was the penetration and influence of Byzantine literature on Bulgarian medieval literature throughout its historical development. Still as strong, although slightly transformed, it continued during the difficult period of Turkish slavery. And the borrowings and ties continued because they had a socio-economic and political prerequisite. Every nation suffered the influence of other nations and, above all, of its neighbors. Moreover, "every society lives in its own special historical environment, which can be - and indeed often is - very similar to the historical environment surrounding other nations, but can never be and never is identical with it". 1 Nations can exert mutual influence only when there are certain points of contact in their social, political and cultural life. The strength of the influence is determined by the degree of community between them. "The influence of the literature of one country on the literature of another is directly proportional to the similarity between the social relations of these countries. It does not exist at all when this similarity is equal to zero... This influence is one-sided when one people, due to its backwardness, cannot give anything to the other either in terms of form or in terms of content... Finally, this influence is mutual when, due to the similarity of social life, and therefore of cultural development, each of the two exchanging peoples can borrow something from the other."

The interest that our literary studies show in our relations with our neighbors in the past is a proven fact. It testifies to the attention with which literary scholars in our country turn to the most beautiful and fruitful manifestations of friendship and amity between the Balkan peoples. In addition, this fact testifies to the expansion of the thematic perimeter of our literary studies; it is an expression of the aspiration of our literature to find its place in a broader literary context. Therefore, the first question that arises when we become acquainted with the recently published book on Bulgarian-Serbian literary relations in the 19th century is whether it meets the requirements of such an important and complex task. Konev's work consists of two parts. The first - "The Great Beginning" contains four chapters: 1. Literary exchange between Bulgarians and Serbs. 2. Translated and Bulgarianized works. Character and significance. 3. The creative path of P. R. Slaveykov and Serbian literature. 4. Serbian teachers in Bulgaria. Literary and cultural and educational activity. The second part, which is called "In support of realism in literature", includes the following chapters: 1. Encounters with drama. 2. Lyuben Karavelov in the development of the Serbian realistic short story. 3. Before the dawn of freedom.

In book 2 of the journal "Literary Thought" the article by V. Smohovska and B. Nichev "On Bulgarian-Serbian Literary Relations and on Some Issues of Comparative Literary Studies" was printed. In fact, it was conceived and carried out as a review for my book "Bulgarian-Serbian Literary Relations in the 19th Century (Until Liberation)". It does not specifically raise or resolve a single question of comparative literary studies on material from our or any other national literature, although at its very beginning a few words are said about "the most beautiful and fruitful manifestations of friendship and amity between the Balkan peoples". That is why I will not dwell here on the problem of comparative literary studies - a very important problem that cannot and should not be resolved incidentally. This area of ​​modern literary studies is attracting the attention of an increasing number of specialists in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, in our country and elsewhere. It is desirable that similar articles appear on the pages of the journal "Literary Thought", that a creative conversation be held on the fundamental and so complex questions of comparative literary studies. In this way, the path of the unauthorized presentation as an original thesis of opinions already known in science or of insufficiently verified and dubious thoughts will be blocked. Every book can be viewed from a variety of positions, and in it one can find successfully written pages, acceptable solutions, or findings that do not meet certain requirements. Even with its positive sides, it often suggests new possibilities, directs the specialized reader to new moments in the problem under study that were not previously noticed. It may even be that unsuccessful solutions prevail in a given book, but even in this case, scientific criticism is obliged to resist them with arguments in order to contribute as much as possible to a more comprehensive clarification of one or another issue, to proceed from the tasks that its author has set for himself. And when this is the case, any insinuations, rude epithets, etc., which inevitably replace the analysis with subjective preferences and qualifications, become completely inappropriate. And unfortunately, this is exactly what happened with the article by V. Smohovska and B. Nichev.

Bulgarian-Croatian literary and cultural relations in the past represent a very significant component in the national development of the two peoples and in their so diverse and rich in content connections with other literatures. Already in the second half of the 18th century, the work of the Croatian poet and educator Andrija Kacić Mišić "A Conversation Pleasant to the Slovenian People" gained wide fame not only in Croatia, but also in Serbia and Bulgaria, creating important prerequisites for the activation of literary and cultural relations between the peoples of these countries. Together with "Slavonic-Bulgarian History" by Paisij Hilendarski, copied in Serbia, and "History of Various Slovenian Peoples..." by Jozan Rajić, this work of Kacić enriched the cultural development of Serbs, Croats and Bulgarians, created new traditions of reciprocity between them, increased their national self-esteem, and activated their literary life at the dawn of their national revival.

The appearance of the book "Images and Problems" is a positive phenomenon in our literary science. Its author Ivan Tsvetkov is known as one of the few best experts on Soviet literature in our country. 176 As early as 1964, the publishing house of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences released his book "Maxim Gorky and Bulgarian Literature", a solid study of some aspects of the great writer's work and of a number of problems of its penetration, distribution and creative perception in Bulgaria. Written with erudition, with a temperamental and lively pen, this work contributed a lot to the overall clarification of the issues of Bulgarian-Russian literary relations. In his first book, Tsvetkov is alien to the narrow setting and solution of problems. He does not mechanically transfer the results of one national literary development to another, does not turn the regularities in the development of one literature into a mandatory norm for another, but seeks the true creative interpenetrations, conditioned by a complex complex of social, political and cultural factors. The subject of the study is the literary-critical perception and stage adaptation of Gorky in our country, with the task of interaction with our poets and writers being set out in perspective. It has now been partially fulfilled.