балканските

Two years ago, when the various sections of the First International Congress of Balkan Studies were being outlined and a general outline of their issues was being drawn up, one could only assume the great interest that some of the planned reports would arouse. At that time, there was still no clear idea of ​​the wide boundaries of the issues that the individual branches of Balkan studies have - a complex science of the history, culture, literature, language, art and folklore of the Balkan peoples, of the historically created and increasingly intensively enriched relationships between them, of their lasting ties with other peoples and other national cultures. Now, when the congress has successfully concluded its work, we understand well how many more significant problems and questions (some of them only raised in the reports or discussions) are yet to be resolved and illuminated from modern scientific positions, in order to correctly outline all the common moments in the centuries-old development of the Balkan peoples, by overcoming the erroneous concepts and findings accumulated in the past. One of the undoubted positive results of the First International Congress of Balkan Studies is that it gave a serious impetus in this direction. And one more thing: in the days from August 26 to September 1, 1966, the congress turned the mutual collegial respect between the individual delegates into a tradition that should be strengthened by all as the main necessary condition for our further research and creative meetings. For if now, when we are at the very beginning of the more intensive and joint study of the problems of Balkan Studies, this atmosphere has ensured a calm and businesslike discussion of various, sometimes very specific, issues, tomorrow it will certainly give us the opportunity for unprecedented mutual acquaintance and study of the individual Balkan literatures and cultures.

Due to centuries of foreign oppression, the Bulgarian nation underwent a peculiar socio-historical development. Our national revival began only in the second half of the 18th century. However, cultural and historical processes have become particularly intense since then. In just one century (1762-1878), national creative thought went through several stages, only to soon rise to great heights. Continuing the traditions of the Revival, literary science from the beginning of our century quickly expanded its problematic, adopting reliable principles for a more comprehensive interpretation of cultural and aesthetic phenomena and processes. Both the great writers and critics of the Revival, and the few academically educated literary scholars after the Liberation, demonstrated a number of correct understandings regarding the diverse prerequisites for the formation of the Bulgarian national culture and literature, regarding the interrelationships and interdependence of the ideological and artistic phenomena of the individual peoples. Directing their research gaze towards the problems of our national revival, the first great Bulgarian literary historians realized that they could not be comprehensively and truthfully illuminated if one did not take into account similar processes and phenomena in neighboring countries - Greece, Serbia, Romania, Russia, with which our people communicated in different ways, through diverse forms.

The business plan recommended by the International Association for the Study of the European Southeast also includes comparative studies in the field of Balkan literatures. Although the idea of ​​this is very fortunate, it seems to me, however, that the task will be difficult for researchers if certain preliminary measures are neglected, which are necessary to take, in the haste to arrive at conclusions that would obviously be too approximate. It will be necessary, in my opinion, first of all to establish the methodology in the order of the searches, in order to leave nothing to chance, by eliminating from the very beginning the possibility of falling into errors, a possibility that would be, I think, incompatible with the aim pursued by this type of work. It is needless to say that any researcher who would embark on such an activity faces enormous difficulties. For it can be asserted without exaggeration that the literatures of the Balkan peoples existed and developed in a closed circle, without obvious relations between them. The difference in language, religion and culture often raised insurmountable barriers that prevented free exchange between the "intelligences" of the ethnic communities of the Balkans. The empires that succeeded each other over the centuries were unable to melt into a single crucible the heterogeneous elements of these peoples, who, although they sometimes lived under the same political power, developed in the direction of their own destiny. Especially since the beginning of the 19th century, the national awakening that marked the life of every Balkan people and the struggles that followed, carved a deep chasm between the intellectuals of this part of the world; the Balkan literatures therefore saw themselves as very distant from each other, I would even say, in some cases fiercely opposed to each other. This explains why the elite of the Balkan countries did not know each other, and with rare exceptions, no Balkan country showed any interest in getting to know the literature of its neighbor. We must also add that the attention of Every country was attracted by the brilliance of the great world literatures, which served as models for writers.