светлината

Only recently, in connection with the XIII Congress of the Union of Polish Writers, has a broad and deeply principled discussion unfolded about the state and prospects of Polish literature. Something new was also felt in the atmosphere, in the spirit of the sessions of the congress itself - greater principle. Attention was directed primarily to key, central problems, while at previous congresses the emphasis was often on secondary issues of a strictly professional nature. Even with the best desire for a conscientious and objective presentation of literary facts, one is not immune from the danger of falling into one-sided assessments, since in Polish literature there is such a diversity of creative individuals, and some creators have undergone such an evolution that information, especially the shorter ones, is quite difficult. Still, some phenomena are very obvious. If one compares the literature in Poland of the last six or seven years with the literature of the previous period, any unbiased reader will see that the newer literature stands on a higher artistic level, is characterized by depth, richness, and dynamism. The development of individual creative personalities has become much more organic, free, and unforced.

On June 24, 1963, an expanded meeting of the scientific council was held at the Institute of Literature, at which a report of the institute's management was discussed in connection with the speech of Dr. Todor Zhivkov to the figures of culture and art. The report, delivered by the director of the institute, Prof. Georgi Tsanev, analyzed the scientific research work of the institute's staff in connection with the main tasks outlined in the speech of the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party. Both the work of the institute as a whole and the individual mistakes and indulgences in the work of the research associates were criticized. The prospects for the development of the institute were also outlined, as well as the most important immediate tasks arising from the spirit of the party's requirements for Marxist-Leninist literary studies. Georgi Dimov, Iliya Konev, Hristo Dudevski, Krastyo Genov, Toncho Zhechev, Vanda Smohovska, Ivan Tsvetkov, Georgi Valchev, Iskra Panova, Stoyko Bozhkov spoke on the report, highlighting the great importance of the speech for the development of our literary studies. The associate of the Department of Culture and Art of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party, Dr. Alexander Dunchev, who was present at the meeting, also made a statement.

I don't know if it's true now, but once upon a time, high school students had albums, on the colorful covers of which was printed Poesie, or Pour souvenir, or simply Album, and inside were all sorts of wishes, thoughts of great people, sometimes transcribed without indicating the author and directly signed by someone who liked them; they also wrote poems, most often prose poems" and all sorts of confessions or just: "my signature is modest, keep it as a souvenir... The graduates of the Svishtov Commercial High School were businesslike young men. The serious practical work for which they were preparing perhaps protected them from the sentimental passions inherent in their youth. Many of them, as is known, including the sons of wealthy parents, were already thinking about the imperfections of the social order, reading socialist books and newspapers, dreaming about the future, preparing for the struggle that was to come in order to reorganize society. Nikolay Liliev ended up at the commercial high school by chance and by a misunderstanding, which remained fateful in his life, because he was weak to remove it, and it was imposed on him with power later on. In Svishtov he already stood out among his classmates with his penchant for poetry, they remembered him as a reciter of Botev and Polyanov. But he studied his lessons diligently and read not only poetry, but also philosophical and political-economic literature in Bulgarian, Russian and German. We cannot know what part he took in the disputes on the then vexed political issues, especially on the disagreements between narrow and broad socialists. How much he was withdrawn may or may not have manifested himself in them. But it is very indicative that when in January 1903 his friend and classmate Tsonyu Stoyanov Gerganov from the Dryanovo village of Kereka presented him with his album with a request to write something as a souvenir, Nikolay Mihaylov did not use the nice paper to leave some of his own work there, nor did he copy other people's poems, but shared thoughts that really moved him and which it was very appropriate to point out to a student, obviously dedicated to his preparation to become a business activist:

His party and Rems comrades are among us. They not only remember "Vaskata" from Hayredin, but deep in their hearts they keep his example of a selflessly devoted comrade, of a selfless party fighter, of a passionate publicist and writer. They have preserved in their memory the light of his bright image and always point out to us his feat as a citizen, a revolutionary and an artist. They always speak of him with respect, with admiration, with adoration. But..... and with great pain. They sincerely regret that their wonderful comrade in battle with the enemy leaves his bones by the turbulent waters of the Ogosta and does not manage to develop as a fiction writer, despite his undeniable talent. They mourn the heartfelt enthusiast, the ardent bonsist, the inventive illegal activist, the organizer of the partisan movement... But they are also proud of him, because he is a standard-bearer of the generation that today fertilizes our literature. Next to him, in the ranks of the immortals, are Tsvetan Spasov, Atanas Manchev, Hristo Karpachev, Kiril Madzharov, Hristo Kozlev, Ivan Nivianin, Marko Angelov, Toncho Staevski and many others.