Милев

The letters of Geo Milev to Nikolay Liliev, which are printed here, were written in the period between 1915 and 1919. They were taken from Liliev's personal archive. Of the 7 preserved letters, one was published as a preface to Geo Milev's translated poems by H. Heine - "Selected Songs and Romances". This letter is dated June 20, 1919 and is entirely dedicated to Heine. It is also included in volume II of Selected Works of Geo Milev edited by Mila Geo Mileva, S., 1940. Nikolay Liliev and Geo Milev were very close, cordial friends. Although Liliev is ten years older, the two feel like they are from the same generation, completely understand each other in life and literary problems, and live with the same joys and sorrows. They are related by their common cultural interests, love of art, and affection for their hometown of Stara Zagora. Geo Milev was born in the village of Radnevo in Stara Zagora, but he considers Stara Zagora his hometown, because he grew up there both physically and spiritually. During their youth, Stara Zagora held one of the first places in the country as a vibrant cultural center, as the birthplace of other contemporary writers and poets: Georgi Bakalov, Dimitar Podvarzachov, Ivan Kh. Hristov, Ivan Mirchev, Kiril Hristov. ..

When, after the tragic September days of 1923, the voice of Geo Milev rose boldly and fearlessly, many were astonished by it. That irreconcilable opponent of realism and an exalted defender of the theory of "pure" art, who tirelessly propagated modernism in our country, spoke with unsuspected passion against fascism and reaction in public life, against formalism and lack of ideas in poetry. It was as if a miracle had happened, as if from the ashes of the people's struggle and suffering, like a mythical phoenix, a completely new artist had been born - a revolutionary, a democrat, a realist. In fact, no miracle had happened. Anyone who comprehensively and directly examines the poet's ideological and creative path and approaches it without prejudice will notice that there is much greater continuity between the different periods of his development than we have previously acknowledged. Geo's path begins with civic poetry, to end with it again, but already on a higher level, more generalized, directed towards a contemporary, definite social ideological direction. " These words of Georgi Bakalov contain a profound truth, much deeper than even their author himself included in them. Because G. Bakalov has in mind only a few early civic works (the poem "On a Solemn Day", the translations of revolutionary poetry published in the magazine "Borba"), and today we can support the same conclusion with many works that the poet created even during the period of his most extreme modernist C Enthusiasms.

Geo Milev's theoretical views on the nature and essence of theatrical art, on the development of Bulgarian theater, as well as his manifestations in the field of directing continue to attract the interest of researchers. The plays he staged, although few in number, were realized in different periods of his life and on different stages: from the attempts in Stara Zagora to stage "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles in 1915 to the stage of the "Renaissance" Theater as a director of the play "Massachovek" by Ernst Toler in 1923. Some of the rehearsed plays did not see the lights of the stage for the first contact with the audience.

"The tragedy begins!" - writes Geo Milev about the bloody September of 1923. In fact, the tragedy began years before that. Bai Ganyo lit the first fuse and with political fireworks presented Alek's head as the greatest achievement in the hands of Ferdinand. This was the opening blow, the first cry of those in power - In the name of the people!" Parties and governments passed this "motto" to each other like a baton. "Lies lie, lies rule, lies steal." The new time invades and with a stunning blow proves that one cannot live only with memories and the past, throwing them overboard like ballast. The spirits of the martyrs of the Bulgarian National Revival excite, perform the insidious movement in the minds, but do not give an answer. "Power is my eternal mistress" - every political department brazenly and loudly confesses. The idols, the "collapsed idols" press their shoulders. But the Buzludzha Congress in Bulgaria is indisputable proof that living water exists. It brings "first love" to an entire generation of the Bulgarian intelligentsia, without, however, providing it with a protective armor at the crossroads. The revolutionary romanticism of a pre-liberation era does not allow for much reflection, but the end of the past and especially the beginning of the 20th century necessitates a logical reassessment, a painful search for new sources. Under other social and political conditions, this search is already a fact in Russia, France, Belgium, Germany. Ethically pure natures face chaos - hopeless and dreamy - protected only by the tormenting images of their "drunken ships", their wanderers, loners and eccentrics. The creators, the creators of spiritual freedom, embodied in poems, colors and music, turn out to be both the Achilles' heel of society and its saviors. Earthly purity is already infinitely compromised in the world of capital and the leaps of human minds from "supermen", from Maeterlinck's "Treasure of the Humble", through the multinational, fragmented internal dialogues of symbolism, through the roar of Verhaeren's "The Ringer" to Ernst Toler's "Massa-Man" - are fully justified by the brutality of the era. In Bulgaria, this era is pouring out in a very short period of years, when our progressive thought must collectively pass through populism and socialism, through symbolism, impressionism, expressionism. A review of the periodicals of just a few of the magazines such as: "Den", "Delo", "Novo Vreme", "Nash Zhivot", "Misl", "Khudozhnik" to the magazine "Cherven Smyah", to the magazine "Plamak".

The topic "Blok Mayakovsky, Milev" is relatively often considered, especially in Soviet and Bulgarian literary studies. But so far, no aesthetic analysis of this topic has been made, something that two researchers, one Bulgarian and one Hungarian, presented in their contribution to the sixth congress of Slavists in Prague in 1968 - Ekaterina Daskalova "Alexander Blok in revolutionary-proletarian poetry in Bulgaria" and Endre Boitar in "Some problems of East European socialist poetry between 1914 and 1929".

"Life is not about happiness, life is about searching" - these words can be used to characterize the lives of many people - many poets, artists, musicians, politicians, scientists. Perhaps for each of them they will sound like the truth, as the only correct ones, although for a life, for a burning in the name of a great idea, in the name of people or art, it is very difficult and in some respects too superficial to give such definitions. And despite everything, I would like to say that our poet Geo Milev completely justifies, proves the correctness of Bruce's thought, shows all its complexity and richness, with his behavior as a poet, a person, a citizen until the end of his life.