Светозар

The historical figures whose names we have united in the title of this work have linked their destinies in the history of the Serbian and Bulgarian peoples almost a hundred years ago, thus embodying the unified process of the emergence of their modern history and culture. Everything that occurred in the Balkans in the sixties and seventies of the last century is so significant for the modern history and culture of the Balkan peoples that considerable scientific efforts must be made to fully study the given historical events, to understand their internal laws and to find ourselves in the channel of those invisible, repeatedly intersecting currents that then organically connected our peoples and determined their subsequent historical destiny. In the numerous attempts undertaken so far to clarify the events of that time and to characterize the individual personalities who in one way or another determined these events, there is a certain tendency towards isolation and an aspiration to consider the facts in their significance, detached from the pan-European processes, limiting them within the narrow Slavic framework and thus reducing, I would say, their general significance. In this case, the authors have often fallen into pathos and nationalism, have been uncritical and have themselves succumbed to ecstasy. By the way, there have been researchers, alien to such affectation and excessive enthusiasm, who have managed to suppress their own excitement, which necessarily accompanies any research, especially such, carried out in a very restless and exciting time. Naturally, such researchers have achieved larger and more significant results.