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The breadth of the concept of history in its present sense in itself determines the complexity of the task that confronts the compilers of works on the history of literature. Solving this task requires, above all, an exceptionally competent penetration into the spirit of the time about which one writes and into the spirit of the time in which one writes. For we can be less and less satisfied with literary histories that are reduced to stating facts and commenting on events, proceeding from literary works. We are talking about something significantly more complex: showing literature as an expression of spiritual, social and economic processes in their progressive development. This means that literary history has radically changed its role and purpose, trying to penetrate deeply to the foundations of social phenomena, creative impulses, etc. Objectivist registration can no longer be its distinguishing feature. It now aims to provide a broad panorama of the literary and spiritual life of peoples in different eras, to shed light on literary, and hence social, sociological problems from our point of view. It is true that literary history has its own methods and literary creation is examined in it with different intentions than poetics examines them. But in its current state, literary history already has a significantly comprehensive and generalizing character and connects a number of defining elements from individual literary sciences. If we decide to look for general historical works on Slavic literatures, written from such an aspect, they will turn out to be very few. And one of them, which in some respects strives to meet these requirements, is the two-volume "Essays on the History of Slavic Literatures" by Prof. Dr. Emil Georgiev.

There are hardly any brighter and more convincing arguments for revealing the essence of the issues under consideration about tradition and innovation than the problem of ideology in literature and art. Unfortunately, when talking about tradition and innovation, the emphasis is usually placed on the secondary, on the derivative, on issues of artistic form, even more limitedly - on the means of expression, and much less is revealed about the essence, change and development of the ideological content in art, which to a large extent determines the artistic form, means of expression, techniques, etc.

The most natural and therefore the most widespread idea of ​​criticism is that it should be distinguished from art by its scientific-logical, conceptual nature of thinking. But we often encounter a directly opposite definition, emphasizing the connection of criticism with artistic thinking, the peculiar way in which it recreates vital and literary problems. The artistry of criticism and its belonging to the vast and diverse field of art were spoken of primarily by authors who examined Belinsky. Leafing through the fiery pages of his works, they enthusiastically noted the poetic aspiration, the captivating lyricism and dramatic tension of his articles. "The point is," writes Al. Grigoriev, "that both art and criticism are subject to one criterion." And in this sense it is clear that he evaluates Belinsky's articles as works of art, which are distinguished by "extraordinary lyricism" and conquer with their brightness, passion and intoxication of the first feeling. The same delight in the artistic and poetic nature of Belinsky's articles, in the power of his words, was also felt by such contemporaries as Goncharov, Turgenev, Dostoevsky and many others.

Although it has long traditions, comparative literary studies has attracted in recent years an increasingly wide circle of representatives of historical-literary, critical and theoretical-aesthetic thought. In the efforts to study the general and specific laws of literary development, to illuminate artistic phenomena from more sides, both as a result of national, concrete-historical conditions, and as phenomena in the fabric of which we find much similarity, resulting from the constant relationships with what was conquered by other peoples, comparative interpretation is proving to be increasingly effective. An indisputable contribution to this direction is made by Marxist literary studies, which, overcoming the limitations of bourgeois comparative studies in the past, in dispute with contemporary idealistic concepts and methods, places the comparative consideration of artistic processes and works on a broad socio-historical, cultural-sociological, philosophical-aesthetic basis. In this way, not only are the prerequisites and driving forces for the development of national literatures revealed, but on the basis of their study, a more complete illumination of the general processes characterizing the literary life of many countries and peoples is achieved.

The theory of literature as the main discipline of literary science has gone too far in its development: it is about to become not only a theory of literature, but also a methodology of literary science. The problems of the methodology of Marxist literary science were left in the background for some time. Raised sometimes by individual authors, they were not always correctly formulated, which is why the results were partial, and the concepts of fiction as art one-sided. This underestimation of the methodology caused a certain stagnation in literary science and allowed the spread of the abstract-class approach, which has not been completely overcome even today. Here we must also look for the arguments of some Western literary scholars who underestimate or deny the importance of Marxist literary science.