Вдъхновен

When, about six decades ago, several literary excerpts appeared in a school periodical under the pseudonym Pavlusha, no one suspected that these were the first steps of an exceptionally gifted creative individuality, who would later manifest himself with an astonishing breadth of interests in various fields of human knowledge, with boundless dedication to great social and cultural ideals. And here today, the former Pavlusha crosses the threshold of the last quarter of a century with graying but youthfully lush hair, with a furrowed but serene and spiritualized face, with eyes shining with flame, hunched over by the burden of that enormous scientific and cultural heritage that foretells us, a heritage accumulated over decades, filling his entire existence with meaning and content. What a harmonious combination between the public figure and the thinker, between the man and the scientist! What an intense spiritual life, an epic life, filled with great trials and ceaseless quests, with penetrating reflections and creative daring! Today, the rich and versatile work of Todor Pavlov stands out brightly against the background of world Marxist thought, increasingly permanently holding and will hold the attention of contemporary and future generations, of all those burned by the flame to become related to the laws of social and cultural development, to penetrate the primordial essence of social and natural phenomena.

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.

The name of Nikolai Khrelkov was very popular in the 1930s among progressive students, who revered the writer as a consistent proletarian poet. Back then, we collected donations for him and dreamed of seeing him one day. For me, this came true in 1946, when for four years I had the opportunity to visit the poet in Gorna Banya as a collaborator on the cultural page of the weekly "Fighting Tuberculosis" that he edited. Himself suffering from tuberculosis, Khrelkov waged a stubborn battle with the "heavy social capitalist legacy," as he jokingly put it.