Традиция

Literary historians have not yet studied sufficiently the rich material on the traditional interest of the cultural community in the small Slavic nation - the Slovenes (numbering 1,600,000 inhabitants today) in our people, in their fate and their culture. There is evidence of this interest as early as the sixteenth century. Several prominent Slovenes of that time - the travel writer Benedikt Kuripečić, the diplomat Žiga Višnegorski, the first Slovene grammarian Adam Bohorič and one of the giants in Slovene literary and political life, the great Slovene enlightener Primož Trubar (1508-1586) - not only mention the name of the Bulgarians, but also speak with a certain sympathy for them. In later times, the interest intensified, acquired a more problematic character, the Bulgarian language and culture became the subject of study and research in the works of several notable people from small Slovenia: the figure of the Slovenian Renaissance Žiga Zojs, the scholar Jernej Kopitar and the continuer of his work Franz Miklošić, etc. And the most prominent poets of the late 19th century - Anton Askerc, Simon Gregorčić and Josip Stritar, as well as Matija Majar-Zilski, Josipina Turnogradska, Anton Slomšek, L. Klinar wrote works with Bulgarian themes.

At the end of October 1964, a scientific session was held at the Department of Linguistics, Literary Studies and Art Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences on the topic "Tradition and Innovation", dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the people's liberation. The session was opened with a short speech by Pantelei Zarev, who spoke about its significance. We are including the reports of Alexander Obretenov and Georgi Tsanev and some of the speeches made by collaborators of the Literary Institute.

Tradition and innovation. Two terms that hardly ever leave the pages of literary periodicals in socialist countries today. So much is explained about their relationship, so many disputes are waged around them - that many are probably tired of it already. "Amen to this banal topic" - you will hear some people say here and there. But literary life constantly - and sometimes too insistently - poses the banal topic.

I want to start with the not-so-stunning paradox that the most beautiful tradition is innovation. It is in the very essence of Marxism as a doctrine, it is the most permanent and most rejuvenating tradition of our society and of our art. The history of humanity and of human thought, the history of art have always been the history of innovators and never the history of epigones, of frozen traditionalists. The first are movement, the urge towards the unknown future, the second are stagnation, attachment to the proven and comfortably furnished present. The first are flights, the second - crawling. The first beat their chests and make revolutions - in science, art, society and open the way for all of humanity or for their people; the second keep their peace, their goods and welcome or carry out the return. They are the knights of inertia. In their fear of the new, they are ready to banish any innovation and theoretically justify its uselessness. That is why we say that communists are the greatest innovators, the most convinced opponents of stagnation, routine, mold, rust. Because let us not forget that in addition to pseudo-innovation, which discredits true innovation, there is also pseudo-tradition, which is already a buried tradition. To break recklessly with the established tradition and to adhere blindly to it - is the same thing. The second is no less harmful than the first. To write henriads and petriads in the 18th century is indeed pseudo-tradition, but to write an epic about Krali Marko in the middle of the 20th century is simply a curiosity. No one is able to restore that artistic consciousness that created the folk epic and the needs that made it necessary.

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.

This is the title of Georgi Tsanev's new book. Compared to "Writers and Problems" (ed. 1961 and 1965) or the latest editions of "Pages from the History of Bulgarian Literature", "Tradition and Innovation" is not as complete, not as representative of the literary work of our prominent literary critic and historian, who turns seventy this year. However, it contains works - first of all, the study "Tradition and Innovation in Bulgarian Literature", as well as the essays on Nikola Furnadzhiev and Asen Raztsvetnikov - which, with their theoretical summaries and the persuasiveness of literary analysis, and with the breadth of literary erudition and the pathos of Marxist critical thought, appear among the best that Georgi Tsanev has left in the last two decades, among the best in our literary history and criticism of that time. He never stood as a dispassionate observer at his literary post, but always perceived the new in Soviet and our literary studies, boldly corrected his own views on the basis of his excellent knowledge of Bulgarian literature. Therefore, he gave his own solution to a number of current literary issues.

It is incomprehensible to us how Fletcher, who according to current criticism cannot even compete with lesser-known playwrights of the time such as Middleton, Webster, or Ford, could throughout the 17th century be counted alongside Shakespeare and Johnson in the "triumvirate of the spirit" and even completely overshadow the name of Shakespeare for at least a generation. This can hardly be explained solely by the "bad taste" of a more elegant and frivolous public, from which - due to the hostility of the Puritan bourgeoisie to the arts and the transition to smaller, closed theatres with correspondingly higher prices - the broad masses, one of the mainstays of Shakespeare's theatre, were gradually excluded. Obviously, Fletcher, with his vision and his themes, responded better to the needs of the time than Shakespeare, with his Renaissance mentality. For Fletcher, although a mediocre poet, is an original and independent mind, and although he outwardly follows the stage technique of Renaissance drama, he is the first who categorically found the way to a new inner form of drama - the Baroque drama. And even those of his own generation who imitated him most could not discover this inner form, but only repeated its external effects. This is the main reason for the great respect paid to him during the time of the nascent Baroque; but it is at the same time and the reason for the extreme disfavor into which he now falls. Baroque drama in England, even in the hands of its greatest representative, John Dryden (1631-1700), is not particularly appreciated by a people nourished on the spirit of Shakespeare's Renaissance theatre, and Fletcher is now regarded not as a pioneer seeking new paths appropriate to his time, but as a renegade from the sound traditions of the Renaissance. Not that any substantial reassessment of Fletcher's work can be expected or even desired. Fletcher is not a great dramatist, but he is an interesting figure: and if his dramas are far inferior to those of Shakespeare, the reason lies rather in the skill of the two dramatists than in the dramatic form itself. The important thing is to understand that this is after all a different kind of drama.